THE  SCIENTIFIC  SPIRIT 
OF  THE  AGE 

AND    OTHER    PLEAS    AND    DISCUSSIONS 


BY 


FRANCES   POWER   COBBE 

AUTHOR  OF   "AN   ESSAY  ON   INTUITIVE   MORALS,"   "RELIGIOUS 

'THE   HOPES  OF  THE   HUMAN 
ARIEN,"    "THE   DUTI] 
WOMEN,"    "A    FAITHLESS    WORLD,"    ETC. 


BOSTON 

GEO.  H.  ELLIS,  141  FRANKLIN  STREET 
1888 


CONTENTS. 


ESSAY 

PREFACE    .............  v 

I.  THE  SCIENTIFIC  SPIRIT  OF  THE  AGE    ...  3 

II.  THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS      ...  37 

III.  PROGRESSIVE  JUDAISM      ........  71 

IV.  THOUGHTS  ABOUT  THINKING    ......  113 

V.  To  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW      .....  149 

VI.  THE  TOWN  MOUSE  AND  THE  COUNTRY  MOUSE  175 


PREFACE. 


WE  are  all  possessed  of  friends  who,  when  any 
serious  belief  or  matter  of  practical  conduct  is  in 
question,  take  up  at  the  outset  a  thesis  of  their 
own  which  they  press  on  our  acceptance  with  the 
best  arguments  at  their  disposal.  It  is  a  rarer  priv- 
ilege to  enjoy  the  intercourse  of  one  who  does  not 
invariably  start  with  a  ready-made  opinion  of  what 
may  be  true,  right,  or  expedient  in  the  doubtful  case 
on  which  we  wish  to  consult  him,  but  who  will 
patiently  turn  over  the  matter  with  us,  suggest 
and  register  the  various  "pros  and  cons,"  refer  to 
admitted  principles  and  facts,  and  thus  aid  us  to 
form  a  comprehensive  judgment  for  ourselves  rather 
than  induce  us  to  accept  his  own.  The  discourse  of 
the  first  order  of  friends  is  an  Argument,  a  Plea,  a 
Contention ;  that  of  the  second,  a  Discussion. 

In  the  same  way,  of  course,  an  Essay  may  be 
either  a  Plea  or  a  Discussion.  The  author  may  take 
the  position  of  Counsel  for  one  side  or  other  of  the 
case  before  the  reader,  or  else  he  may  charge  as 
Judge,  and  sum  up  the  substance  of  such  arguments 
as  might  have  been  used  by  two  advocates  on  the 
opposite  sides.  Either  style  of  writing  is  perfectly 
legitimate ;  and  each  has  its  particular  fitness  and 


Vi  PREFACE 

utility.  Misunderstanding  and  perplexity  only  occur 
when  the  hasty  reader  (newspaper  critics  being  sig- 
nally guilty  in  this  matter)  chooses  to  assume  that 
an  avowedly  one-sided  Plea  is  intended  for  a  Judicial 
Discussion,*  or  treats  a  Discussion  as  a  Plea  for  the 
side  which  the  critic  dislikes. 

In  the  present  little  collection  of  Essays,  written 
at  various  times  and  for  various  objects,  it  will  be 
found  that  the  first  three  belong  to  the  class  which 
I  have  described  as  Pleas,  and  the  last  three  more 
or  less  to  that  of  Discussions. 

I  plead  that  the  Scientific  Spirit  of  the  Age,  while 
it  has  given  us  many  precious  things,  is,  in  its  pres- 
ent exorbitant  development,  depriving  us  of  things 
more  precious  still. 

I  plead  that  the  Education  of  the  Emotions  (to 
be  carried  on  chiefly  through  the  contagion  of  good 
and  noble  sentiments)  is  an  object  of  paramount 
importance,  albeit  nearly  totally  ignored  in  ordinary 
systems  of  education. 

I  plead  that,  in  the  present  disintegration  of  all 
religious  opinion,  Judaism  may  yet  become  a  pro- 
gressive, and  cease  to  be  merely  a  tribal,  faith ;  and 
that,  if  it  absorb  the  moral  and  spiritual  essence  of 
Christianity,  it  may  solve  the  great  problem  of  com- 

*  Several  such  critics,  writing  of  the  essay  in  this  book  on  the 
"  Scientific  Spirit  of  the  Age  "  when  it  appeared  in  the  Contemporary 
Review  for  July,  condemned  me  for  failing  to  do  adequate  justice  to 
Science,  quite  regardless  of  my  reiterated  assertions  (see  pp.  6,  7, 
34)  that  I  was  writing  exclusively  on  the  adverse  side,  and  left  the 
glorification  of  the  modern  Diana  of  the  Ephesians  to  the  mixed 
multitude  of  her  followers. 


PREFACE  Vll 

bining  a  theology  consonant  to  modern  philosophy 
with  a  worship  hallowed  by  the  sacred  associations 
of  the  remotest  past. 

In  the  last  three  Essays,  I  discuss  the  relation  of 
Knowledge  to  Happiness ;  I  discuss  the  real  —  as 
distinguished  from  the  conventional  —  character  of 
our  common  processes  of  Thought ;  and,  finally,  I 
discuss  the  respective  claims  of  Town  and  Country 
Life  to  be  esteemed  most  healthy  and  felicitous  for 
body  and  mind. 

I  shall  much  rejoice  if  I  win  my  readers  to  adopt 
the  opinions  which  I  have  advocated  in  the  first  half 
of  the  book. 

I  shall  remain  altogether  indifferent  as  to  which 
of  the  alternative  views  put  forth  in  the  concluding 
Essays  may  seem  to  them  most  impressive,  and 
only  congratulate  myself  if  I  shall  have  succeeded 
in  setting  forth  in  due  light  and  order  the  multitu- 
dinous points  which  together  constitute  the  materials 
for  forming  a  sound  judgment  upon  them. 


FRANCES  POWER  COBBE. 


HENGWRT,  DOLGELLY, 
1888. 


ESSAY   I. 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  SPIRIT  OF 
THE  AGE. 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  SPIRIT  OF  THE  AGE. 


THAT  the  present  is  pre-eminently  the  Age 
of  Science  is  a  fact  equally  recognized  by  the 
majority  who  hail  it  with  triumph  and  by  the 
minority  who  regard  it  with  feelings  wherein 
regret  and  apprehension  have  their  place.  As 
in  Literature  an  age  of  production  is  ever 
followed  by  an  age  of  criticism,  so  in  the 
general  history  of  human  interests  War,  Relig- 
ion, Art,  start  in  early  days  and  run  their 
swift  course,  while  Science  creeps  slowly  after 
them,  till  at  last  she  passes  them  on  the  way 
and  comes  foremost  in  the  race.  We  still  in 
our  time  have  War ;  but  it  is  no  longer  the 
conflict  of  valiant  soldiers,  but  the  game  of 
scientific  strategists.  We  still  have  Religion; 
but  she  no  longer  claims  earth  and  heaven  as 
her  domain,  but  meekly  goes  to  church  by  a 
path  over  which  Science  has  notified,  "  On 
Sufferance  Only."  We  still  have  Art ;  but  it 
is  no  longer  the  Art  of  Fancy,  but  the  Art  of 


4  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

the  Intellect,  wherein  the  Beautiful  is  indefi- 
nitely postponed  to  the  technically  True,  as 
Truth  is  discerned  by  men  who  think  quit riy 
a  rien  de  vrai  excepte  le  laid.  All  our  multi- 
form activities,  from  agriculture  down  to  dress- 
making, are  in  these  days  nothing  if  not 
"  scientific,"  and  to  thousands  of  worthy  people 
it  is  enough  to  say  that  Science  teaches  this  or 
that,  or  that  the  interests  of  Science  require 
such  and  such  a  sacrifice,  to  cause  them  to  bow 
their  heads,  as  pious  men  of  old  did  at  the 
message  of  a  Prophet.  "  It  is  SCIENCE  !  Let  it 
do  what  seemeth  it  good."  The  claims  of  the 
aesthetic  faculty,  and  even  of  the  moral  sense, 
to  speak  in  arrest  of  judgment  on  matters  en- 
tirely within  their  own  spheres,  are  ruled  out  of 
court. 

By  a  paradoxical  fatality,  however,  it  would 
appear  as  if  the  obsession  of  the  Scientific 
Spirit  is  likely  to  be  a  little  lightened  for  us  by 
an  event  which  might  have  been  expected  to 
rivet  the  yoke  on  our  necks.  The  recently 
published  Life  of  the  most  illustrious  and  most 
amiable  man  of  Science  of  this  scientific  age 
has  suggested  to  many  readers  doubts  of  the  all- 
sufficiency  of  Science  to  build  up  not  theo- 
ries, but  men.  Mr.  Darwin's  admirably  candid 
avowal  of  the  gradual  extinction  in  his  mind  of 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  5 

the  aesthetic  *  and  religious  elements  has  proved 
startling  to  a  generation  which,  even  when  it  is 
ready  to  abandon  Religion,  would  be  direfully 
distressed  to  lose  the  pleasures  afforded  by  Art 
and  Nature,  Poetry  and  Music.  Instead  of 
lifting  the  scientific  vocation  to  the  skies  (as 
was  probably  anticipated),  this  epoch-making 
Biography  seems  to  have  gone  far  to  throw  a 
sort  of  dam  across  the  stream,  and  to  have 
arrested  not  a  few  Science-worshippers  with 
the  query :  "  What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he 
discover  the  origin  of  species  and  know  exactly 
how  earth-worms  and  sun-dews  conduct  them- 
selves, if  all  the  while  he  grow  blind  to  the 
loveliness  of  nature,  deaf  to  music,  insensible 
to  poetry,  and  as  unable  to  lift  his  soul  to  the 
Divine  and  Eternal  as  was  the  primeval  Ape 
from  whom  he  has  descended  ?  Is  this  all  that 
Science  can  do  for  her  devotee  ?  Must  he  be 
shorn  of  the  glory  of  humanity  when  he  is 
ordained  her  Priest  ?  Does  he  find  his  loftiest 
faculties  atrophied  when  he  has  become  a 

*  "  Up  to  the  age  of  thirty,  or  beyond  it,  poetry  of  many  kinds, 
such  as  the  works  of  Milton,  Byron,  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and 
Shelley,  gave  me  great  delight,  and  even  as  a  school-boy  I  took 
intense  delight  in  Shakespeare.  I  have  also  said  that  formerly 
pictures  gave  me  considerable,  and  music  very  great  delight.  But 
now,  for  many  years,  I  cannot  endure  to  read  a  line  of  poetry.  I 
have  also  almost  lost  my  taste  for  pictures  or  music." — Darwin's 
Life,  vol.  i.  p.  101. 


6  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF   THE    AGE 

"  machine   for   grinding   general   laws    out   of 
large  collections  of  facts"?* 

While  these  reflections  are  passing  through 
many  minds,  it  may  be  permitted  to  me  to  re- 
view some  features  of  the  Scientific  Spirit  of 
the  Age.  Frankly,  I  shall  do  it  from  an  adverse 
point  of  view.  There  were  many  years  of  my 
life  during  which  I  regarded  it  with  profound, 
though  always  distant,  admiration.  Grown  old, 
I  have  come  to  think  that  many  spirits  in  the 
hierarchy  are  loftier  and  purer ;  that  the  noblest 
study  of  mankind  is  Man,  rather  than  rock  or 
insect;  and  that,  even  at  its  best,  Knowledge  is 
immeasurably  less  precious  than  Goodness  and 
Love.  Whether  in  these  estimates  I  err  or  am 
justified,  it  would,  in  any  case,  be  superfluous  for 
me  to  add  my  feeble  voice  to  the  glorification 
of  the  Scientific  Spirit.  Diana  of  the  Ephe- 
sians  was  never  proclaimed  so  vociferously 
"  Great "  ;  and  perhaps,  like  the  worshippers  of 
the  elder  goddess,  it  may  be  said  of  those  of 
Science,  "  The  most  part  know  not  wherefore 
they  have  come  together."  It  will  suffice  if 
I  succeed  in  partially  exhibiting  how  much 
we  are  in  danger  of  losing  by  the  Scientific 
Spirit,  while  others  show  us,  more  or  less  truly, 
what  we  gain  thereby. 

*  Darwin's  Life,  vol.  \.  p.  101.     Said  of  himself  by  Darwin. 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF   THE    AGE  7 

In  speaking  of  "  Science  "  in  this  paper,  I  must 
be  understood  to  refer  only  to  the  Physical 
Sciences,  not  to  the  mathematical  or  metaphysi- 
cal. The  former  (especially  the  Biological 
group)  have  of  late  years  come  so  much  to  the 
front  that  the  old  application  of  the  word  to  the 
exact  sciences  and  to  metaphysics  and  ethics 
has  almost  dropped  out  of  popular  use.  I  also 
desire  to  explain  at  starting  that  I  am  not  so 
blind  as  to  ignore  the  splendid  achievements  of 
modern  physical  science  in  its  own  realm,  nor 
the  benefits  which  many  applications  of  the 
Scientific  Spirit  have  brought  in  various  other 
directions.  It  is  the  intrusiveness  and  oppres- 
sion of  the  Scientific  Spirit  in  regions  where  it 
has  no  proper  work,  and  (still  more  often)  its 
predominance  in  others  where  its  place  should 
be  wholly  subordinate,  against  which  a  protest 
appears  to  be  needed.  A  score  of  causes  have 
contributed  in  our  generation  to  set  Science  up 
and  to  pull  other  things  down.  The  levels  need 
to  be  redressed.  Time  will  not  permit  me  to 
exhibit  the  results  of  the  excessive  share  taken 
of  late  years  by  the  Scientific  Spirit  in  many 
practical  matters  wherein  experience  and  com- 
mon sense  were  safer  guides,  e.g.,  in  Agriculture. 
This  side  of  the  question  I  must  leave  un- 
touched, and  limit  myself  to  the  discussion  of 


8  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

the  general  influence  of  the  Scientific  Spirit  in 
Education,  in  Art,  in  Morals,  and  in  Religion. 

Professor  Tyndall,  in  the  Preface  to  his  great 
work  on  "  Heat  as  a  mode  of  Motion,"  calls 
Science  "the  noblest  growth  of  modern  times," 
and  adds  that  "  as  a  means  of  intellectual  educa- 
tion its  claims  are  still  disputed,  though,  once 
properly  organized,  greater  and  more  benefi- 
cent revolutions  wait  its  employment  here  than 
those  which  have  marked  its  application  in 
the  material  world  "  (2d  ed.,  p.  x).  Since  the 
publication  of  this  book,  and  indeed  since  the 
opening  of  the  Age  of  Science,  the  relative 
claims  of  Science  and  Literature  to  form  the 
basis  of  intellectual  instruction  have  been  inces- 
santly debated  by  men  qualified  by  experience 
in  tuition  (which  I  cannot  claim  to  be)  to  form 
a  judgment  on  the  subject.  There  has  been, 
however,  I  think,  too  little  attention  given  on 
either  side  to  the  relative  moral  influences  of 
the  two  studies. 

In  addressing  the  London  Society  for  the 
Extension  of  University  Teaching  on  March  3 
last,  Sir  James  Paget  expressed  his  dissent  from 
Professor  Morley's  opinion  (given  on  a  similar 
occasion  last  year)  that "  Literature  was  an  ex- 
cellent, if  not  a  better  study  than  Science."  Sir 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  9 

James  maintained,  on  the  contrary,  that  "noth- 
ing could  better  advance  human  prosperity  than 
Science"  and  he  elaborately  set  forth  the  specific 
benefits  of  a  scientific  education  as  he  conceived 
them,  as  follows  :  — 

There  was  first  the  teaching  of  the  power  of  observing, 
then  the  teaching  of  accuracy,  then  of  the  difficulty  of 
attaining  to  a  real  knowledge  of  the  truth,  and,  lastly,  the 
teaching  of  the  methods  by  which  they  could  pass  from 
that  which  was  proved  to  the  thinking  of  what  was  prob- 
able.* 

It  would,  of  course,  be  unjust  to  hold  Science 
to  these  definitions,  as  if  they  exhausted  her 
claims  as  our  instructress.  It  may,  however, 
fairly  be  assumed  that,  in  the  view  of  one  of  the 
leading  men  of  science  of  the  day,  they  are 
paramount.  If  any  much  higher  results  than 
they  were  to  be  expected  from  scientific  teach- 
ing, Sir  James  would  scarcely  have  omitted  to 
present  them  first  or  last.  To  what,  then,  do 
these  four  great  lessons  of  Science  amount  ? 
They  teach  —  and,  I  think,  teach  only  —  Obser- 
vation, Accuracy,  Intellectual  Caution,  and  the 
acquirement  of  a  Method  of  advancing  to  the 

*  That  organ  of  the  Scientific  party,  the  British  Medical  Journal, 
eulogizing  this  address,  remarked  that  "  Sir  James  is  a  master  of 
English,  clothing  all  his  thoughts  in  the  most  elegant  language." 
To  the  mere  literary  mind  the  above  definitions  may  be  thought  to 
leave  something  to  be  desired  on  the  score  of  "elegance." 


IO  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

thinking  of  what  was  probable, —  possibly  the 
method  commonly  known  as  Induction. 

I  must  confess  that  these  "  great  truths  "  (as 
Sir  James  oddly  calls  them)  represent  to  my 
mind  only  the  culmination  of  the  lower  range 
of  human  faculties;  or,  more  strictly  speak- 
ing, the  perfect  application  to  human  concerns 
of  those  faculties  which  are  common  to  man 
and  the  lower  animals.  A  fox  may  be  an  "  ob- 
server" and  an  exceedingly  accurate  one  —  of 
hen-roosts.  He  may  be  deeply  sensible  of  "the 
difficulty  of  attaining  to  a  real  knowledge  "  —of 
traps.  Further  than  this,  he  may  even  "pass 
from  the  proved"  —  existence  of  a  pack  of 
hounds  in  his  cover  to  "  thinking  that  it  was 
probable"  —  he  would  shortly  be  chased.  To 
train  a  MAN,  it  is  surely  indispensable  to  develop 
in  him  a  superior  order  of  powers  from  these. 
His  mind  must  be  enriched  with  the  culture  of 
his  own  age  and  country,  and  of  other  lands 
and  ages,  and  fortified  by  familiarity  with  the 
thoughts  of  great  souls  on  the  topics  of  loftiest 
interest.  He  must  be  accustomed  to  think  on 
subjects  above  those  to  which  his  observation, 
or  accuracy  of  description,  or  caution  in  accept- 
ing evidence  can  apply,  and  on  which  (it  is  to 
be  hoped)  he  will  reach  some  anchorage  of  faith 
more  firm  than  Sir  James  Paget's  climax  of 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  II 

scientific  culture,  "  the  passing  from  that  which 
was  proved  to  the  thinking  of  what  was  prob- 
able" He  ought  to  handle  the  method  of  de- 
ductive reasoning  at  least  as  well  as  that  of 
induction,  and  beyond  these  (purely  intellect- 
ual) attainments  a  human  education  making 
claim  to  completeness  should  cultivate  the  im- 
agination and  poetic  sentiment;  should  "  soften 
manners,"  as  the  liter ae  humaniores  proverbially 
did  of  old;  should  widen  the  sympathies,  dig- 
nify the  character,  inspire  enthusiasm  for  noble 
actions,  and  chivalrous  tenderness  towards 
women  and  all  who  need  defence ;  and  thus 
send  forth  the  accomplished  student  a  gentle- 
man in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.  The  benefits 
attributed  by  Sir  James  Paget  to  Scientific 
education,  and  even  those  with  which,  in  can- 
dor, we  may  credit  it  beyond  his  four  "great 
truths,"  fall,  I  venture  to  think,  deplorably 
short  of  such  a  standard  of  culture  as  this. 

The  deficiencies  of  Scientific  education  do 
not  exhaust  the  objections  against  it.  There 
seem  to  be  positive  evils  almost  inseparable 
from  such  training  when  carried  far  with  the 
young.  One  of  the  worst  is  the  danger  of  the 
adoption  by  the  student  of  materialistic  views 
on  all  subjects.  He  need  not  become  a  theo- 
retic or  speculative  Materialist :  that  is  another 


12  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT   OF   THE    AGE 

risk,  which  may  or  may  not  be  successfully 
eliminated.  But  he  will  almost  inevitably  fall 
into  practical  materialism.  Of  the  two  sides  of 
human  life,  his  scientific  training  will  compel 
him  to  think  always  in  the  first  place  of  the 
lower.  The  material  (or,  as  our  fathers  would 
have  called  it,  the  carnal)  fact  will  be  upper- 
most in  his  mind,  and  the  spiritual  meaning 
thereof  more  or  less  out  of  sight.  He  will 
view  his  mother's  tears  not  as  expressions  of 
her  sorrow,  but  as  solutions  of  muriates  and 
carbonates  of  soda,  and  of  phosphates  of  lime ; 
and  he  will  reflect  that  they  were  caused  not 
by  his  heartlessness,  but  by  cerebral  pressure 
on  her  lachrymal  glands.  When  she  dies,  he 
will  "peep  and  botanize"  on  her  grave, —  not 
with  the  poet's  sense  of  the  sacrilegiousness  of 
such  ill-placed  curiosity,  but  with  the  serene 
conviction  of  the  meritoriousness  of  accurate 
observation  among  the  scientifically  interesting 
"  Flora  "  of  a  cemetery. 

To  this  class  of  mind,  thoroughly  imbued 
with  the  Scientific  Spirit,  Disease  is  the  most 
important  of  facts  and  the  greatest  of  evils0 
Sin,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  thing  on  which 
neither  microscope  nor  telescope  nor  spectro- 
scope, nor  even  stethoscope,  can  afford  instruc- 
tion. Possibly  the  student  will  think  it  only  a 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  13 

spectral  illusion ;  or  he  will  foresee  that  it  may 
be  explained  by  and  by  scientifically,  as  a  form 
of  disease.  There  may  be  discovered  bacilli  of 
Hatred,  Covetousness,  and  Lust,  respectively 
responsible  for  Murder,  Theft,  and  Adultery. 
Already  hypocrisy  is  a  recognized  form  of 
Hysteria.  The  state  of  opinion  in  "  Erewhon  " 
may  be  hopefully  looked  for  in  England,  when 
the  Scientific  Spirit  altogether  prevails. 

Besides  its  materializing  tendency,  a  Scien- 
tific Education  involves  other  evils,  among 
which  may  be  counted  the  fostering  of  a  callous 
and  irreverent  spirit.  To  this  I  shall  return 
presently.  Of  course  every  tendency  of  a  pur- 
suit, good  or  bad,  affects  the  young  who  are 
engaged  in  it  much  more  than  the  old,  whose 
characters  may  have  been  moulded  under  quite 
opposite  influences.  We  must  wait  for  a  gen- 
eration to  see  the  Scientific  Spirit  in  its  full 
development. 

As  to  the  instruction  of  young  men  and 
women  in  Physiological  Science  in  particular, 
I  am  exonerated  from  treating  the  subject  by 
being  privileged  to  cite  the  opinions  of  two  of 
the  most  eminent  and  experienced  members 
of  the  scholastic  profession.  I  do  so  with 
great  thankfulness,  believing  that  it  will  be 
a  revelation  to  many  parents,  blindly  caught 


14  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

by  scientific  claptrap,  to  learn  that  such  are 
the  views  of  men  among  the  best  qualified 
in  England  to  pronounce  judgment  on  the 
subject. 

The  late  lamented  Mr.  Thring,  of  Upping- 
ham,  wrote  to  me,  Sept.  6,  1886:  — 

My  writings  on  Education  sufficiently  show  how  strongly 
I  feel  on  the  subject  of  a  literary  education,  or  rather  how 
confident  I  am  in  the  judgment  that  there  can  be  no  worthy 
education  which  is  not  based  on  the  study  of  the  highest 
thoughts  of  the  highest  men  in  the  best  shape.  As  for 
Science  (most  of  it  falsely  so  called),  if  a  few  leading 
minds  are  excepted,  it  simply  amounts,  to  the  average  dull 
worker,  to  no  more  than  a  kind  of  upper  shop  work, 
weighing  out  and  labelling  and  learning  alphabetical  for- 
mulae,—  a  superior  grocer  assistant's  work,  and  has  not 
a  single  element  of  higher  mental  training  in  it.  Not 
to  mention  that  it  leaves  out  all  knowledge  of  men  and 
life,  and  therefore  —  is  eminently  fitted  for  life  and  its 
struggle  !  Physiology  in  its  worse  sense  adds  to  this  a 
brutalizing  of  the  average  practitioner,  or  rather  a  dev- 
ilish combination  of  intellect  worship  and  cruelty  at  the 
expense  of  feeling  and  character.  For  my  part,  if  it 
were  true  that  Vivisection  had  wonderfully  relieved  bodily 
disease  for  men,  if  it  was  at  the  cost  of  lost  spirits,  then 
let  the  body  perish.  And  it  is  at  the  cost  of  lost  spirits. 
I  do  not  say  that  under  no  circumstances  should  an 
experiment  take  place,  but  I  do  say  that  under  no  circum- 
stances should  an  experiment  take  place  for  teaching 
purposes.  You  will  see  how  decided  my  judgments  are 
on  this  matter. 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  15 

The  Rev.  J.  E.  C.  Welldon,  Head  Master  of 
Harrow,  has  been  good  enough  to  write  to  me 
as  follows  :  — 

I  am  most  willing  to  let  you  quote  my  words,  whether 
what  I  said  before  or  what  I  say  now.  You  command  my 
full  sympathy  in  the  crusade  which  you  have  so  nobly 
declared  against  cruelty.  I  say  this  frankly,  although  I 
know  that  there  is  some  difference  between  us  in  regard 
to  the  practice  of  Vivisection.  But  even  if  it  be  neces- 
sary that  in  some  cases,  and  under  strict  conditions, 
vivisectional  experiments  should  be  made  upon  animals,  I 
cannot  doubt  that  the  use  of  such  experiments  tends  to 
exercise  a  demoralizing  influence  upon  any  person  who 
may  be  called  to  make  them.  I  hold,  therefore,  that 
the  educational  effect  of  Vivisection  is  always  injurious. 
Knowledge  is  dearly  purchased  at  the  cost  of  tenderness, 
and  I  cannot  believe  that  any  morally-minded  person 
could  desire  to  familiarize  the  young  with  the  sight  of 
animal  suffering.  For  my  part,  I  look  upon  the  hardness 
of  heart  with  which  some  distinguished  physiologists  have 
met  the  protest  raised  against  Vivisection  as  one  of  many 
signs  that  materialism  means  at  the  last  an  inversion  of 
the  ethical  law ;  *>.,  a  preference  of  knowledge  to  good- 
ness, of  mind  to  spirit,  or,  in  a  word,  of  human  things  to 
divine.  Surely  it  is  a  paradox  that  they  who  minimize  the 
specific  distinction  between  man  and  the  animals  should 
be  the  least  tender  in  their  views  of  animal  sufferings,  and 
that  Christians  who  accentuate  that  distinction  should  be 
willing  to  spare  animals  pain  at  the  cost  of  enhancing 
their  own.  I  conceive  it  then  to  be  a  primary  duty  of  a 
modern  educator,  at  School  or  at  College,  to  cultivate  in 
his  pupils,  by  all  the  means  in  his  power,  the  sympathetic 
sentiment  towards  the  animal  world. 


1 6          THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF   THE    AGE 

To  turn  to  a  less  painful  part  of  our  subject. 

Science  and  Art  are  constantly  coupled  to- 
gether in  common  parlance  and  in  grants  of 
public  money ;  but,  if  ever  incompatibility  of 
temper  formed  a  just  ground  of  divorce,  it  is 
surely  in  their  case.  When  Science  —  like  Pov- 
erty—  comes  in  at  the  door,  Art  —  like  Love  — 
flies  out  at  the  window.  They  move  in  differ- 
ent planes,  and  touch  different  parts  of  human 
nature.  Science  appeals  to  the  Intellect,  Art 
to  the  Emotions;  and  we  are  so  constituted  that 
our  Intellects  and  Emotions  are  like  buckets  in 
a  well.  When  our  Intellects  are  in  the  ascend- 
ant, our  Emotions  sink  out  of  sight ;  when  our 
Emotions  rise  to  the  surface,  our  busy  Intellects 
subside  into  quiescence.  It  is  only  the  idolatry 
of  Science  which  could  make  intelligent  men 
overlook  the  fact  that  she  and  Art  resemble 
two  leashed  greyhounds  pulling  opposite  ways, 
and  never  running  together  unless  there  be 
some  game  (shall  we  surmise  an  endowment  of 
public  money?)  in  view.  The  synthetic,  rever- 
ential, sympathizing  spirit  of  Art  is  opposed, 
as  the  different  poles  of  the  magnet,  to  the 
analytic,  self-asserting,  critical  spirit  of  Science. 
The  artist  seeks  Beauty ;  finds  likenesses  ;  dis- 
cerns the  Ideal  through  the  Real.  The  man 
of  Science  seeks  Facts;  draws  distinctions; 
strips  the  Real  to  the  skin  and  the  bones. 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  17 

A  great  light  of  the  Scientific  Age  has  been 
heard  to  say  that  when  he  first  visited  the  Vat- 
ican he  "  sat  down  before  Raphael's  Transfigu- 
ration and  filled  three  pages  of  his  note-book 
with  its  faults."  It  was  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  for  him  to  do!  How  should  a 
Physicist  approve  of  three  figures  suspended 
in  the  air  in.  defiance  of  the  laws  of  gravita- 
tion? Or  what  could  a  Zoologist  say  to  an 
angel  outrageously  combining  in  his  person 
the  wings  exclusively  belonging  to  the  Order 
Aves  with  the  arms  and  legs  of  Bimana? 
Worst  of  all,  what  must  be  the  feelings  of  a 
Physiologist  confronted  with  a  bas-relief  of  a 
Centaur  with  two  stomachs,  or  of  a  Cherub 
with  none  ? 

Poetry  is  the  Art  of  Arts.  If  we  desire  to 
see  what  Science  can  do  for  it,  let  us  take  a 
typical  piece  wherein  Fancy  revels  and  plays 
like  an  Ariel  with  wreaths  of  lovely  tropes, — 
say  Shelley's  "  Sensitive  Plant,"  for  example. 
We  must  begin  by  cutting  out  all  the  absurdly 
unscientific  statements;  e.g.,  that  the  lily  of  the 
valley  grows  pale  with  passion,  that  the  hya- 
cinth rings  peals  of  music  from  its  bells,  and 
that  the  narcissus  gazes  at  itself  in  the  stream. 
Then,  in  lieu  of  this  folly,  we  must  describe 
how  the  garden  has  been  thoroughly  drained 


1 8  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

and  scientifically  manured  with  guano  and  sew- 
age. After  this  the  flowers  may  be  mentioned 
under  their  proper  classes,  as  monandria  and 
polyandria,  cryptogams  and  phenogams.  Such 
would  be  the  result  of  bringing  the  Scientific 
Spirit  to  bear  on  Poetry.  Introduced  into  the 
border  realm  of  Fiction,  it  begins  by  marring 
with  pedantic  illustrations  the  otherwise  artis- 
tic work  of  George  Eliot.  Pushed  further,  it 
furnishes  us  with  medical  novels,  wherein  the 
leading  incident  is  a  surgeon  dissecting  his 
aunt.  Still  a  step  onward,  we  reach  the  brute 
realism  of  "  A  Mummer's  Wife  "  and  "  La  Joie 
de  Vivre."  The  distance  between  Walter  Scott 
and  Zola  measures  that  between  Art  and  Sci- 
ence in  Fiction. 

To  many  readers  it  may  appear  that  the 
antagonism  of  Science  to  Art  may  be  con- 
doned in  favor  of  her  high  claim  to  be  the 
guide,  not  to  Beauty,  but  to  Truth.  But  is  it 
indeed  Truth,  in  the  sense  which  we  have  hith- 
erto given  to  that  great  and  sacred  word,  at 
which  Physical  Science  is  now  aiming?  Can 
we  think  of  Truth  merely  as  a  vast  heap  of 
Facts,  piled  up  into  an  orderly  pyramid  of  a 
Science,  like  one  of  Timur's  heaps  of  skulls? 
To  collect  a  million  facts,  test  them,  classify 
them,  raise  by  induction  generalizations  con- 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  19 

earning  them,  and  hand  them  down  to  the  next 
generation  to  add  a  few  thousand  more  facts 
and  (probably)  to  reconstruct  the  pyramid  on  a 
different  basis  and  another  plan, —  if  this  be 
indeed  to  arrive  at  "  Truth,"  modern  Science 
may  boast  she  has  touched  the  goal.  Yet  in 
other  days  Truth  was  deemed  something  no- 
bler than  this.  It  was  the  interests  which  lay 
behind  and  beyond  the  facts,  their  possible 
bearing  on  man's  deepest  yearnings  and  sub- 
limest  hopes,  which  gave  dignity  and  meaning 
to  the  humblest  researches  into  rock  and  plant, 
and  which  glorified  such  discoveries  as  Kep- 
ler's till  he  cried  in  rapture,  "O  God,  I  think 
thy  thoughts  after  thee ! "  and  Newton's,  till  he 
closed  the  "  Principia  "  (as  Parker  said  of  him) 
by  "bursting  into  the  Infinite  and  kneeling 
there."  In  our  time,  however,  Science  has 
repeatedly  renounced  all  pretension  to  throw 
light  in  any  direction  beyond  the  sequence  of 
physical  causes  and  effects ;  and  by  doing  so 
she  has,  I  think,  abandoned  her  claim  to  be 
man's  guide  to  Truth.  The  Alpine  traveller 
who  engages  his  guides  to  scale  the  summit  of 
the  Jungfrau,  and  finds  them  stop  to  booze  in 
the  Wirthschaft  at  the  bottom,  would  have  no 
better  right  to  complain  than  those  who  fondly 
expected  Science  to  bring  them  to  God,  and 


2O  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

are  informed  that  she  now  never  proceeds 
above  the  Ascidian.  So  long  as  all  the  rivu- 
lets of  laws  traced  by  Science  flowed  freshly 
onward  towards  the  sea,  our  souls  drank  of 
them  with  thankfulness.  Now  that  they  lose 
themselves  in  the  sands,  they  have  become 
mere  stagnant  pools  of  knowledge. 

We  now  turn  to  the  influence  of  the  Scien- 
tific Spirit  on  Morals. 

Respecting  the  theory  of  ethics,  the  physico- 
Scientific  Spirit  has  almost  necessarily  been 
from  the  first  Utilitarian,  not  Transcendental. 
To  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  the  world  first  owed 
the  suggestion  that  moral  intuitions  are  only 
results  of  hereditary  experiences.  "  I  believe," 
he  wrote  in  1868  to  Mr.  Mill,  "that  the  experi- 
ences of  utility,  organized  and  consolidated 
through  all  past  generations  of  the  human 
race,  have  been  producing  corresponding  mod- 
ifications which,  by  continued  transmission  and 
accumulation,  have  become  in  us  certain  facul- 
ties of  moral  intuition,  certain  emotions  re- 
sponding to  right  and  wrong  conduct  which 
have  no  apparent  basis  in  the  individual  expe- 
riences of  utility."  Mr.  Darwin  took  up  the 
doctrine  at  this  stage,  and  in  his  "  Descent  of 
Man"  linked  on  the  human  conscience  to  the 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  21 

instincts  of  the  lower  animals,  from  whence  he 
held  it  to  be  derived.  Similar  instincts,  he 
taught,  would  have  grown  up  in  any  other  ani- 
mal as  well  endowed  as  we  are,  but  those  other 
animals  would  not  necessarily  attach  their 
ideas  of  right  and  wrong  to  the  same  conduct. 
"  If,  for  instance,  men  were  reared  under  pre- 
cisely the  same  conditions  as  hive-bees,  there 
can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  our  unmarried 
females  would,  like  the  worker-bees,  think  it  a 
sacred  duty  to  kill  their  brothers."  (Descent  of 
Man,  vol.  i.  p.  73.) 

These  two  doctrines  —  that  Conscience  is 
only  the  "  capitalized  experience  of  the  human 
tribe  "  (as  Dr.  Martineau  has  summarized  Mr. 
Spencer)  and  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
absolute  or  immutable  Morality,  but  only  a 
convenient  Rule  for  each  particular  class  of  in- 
telligent animals  —  have  between  them  revo- 
lutionized theoretic  ethics,  and  deeply  imper- 
illed, so  far  as  they  are  accepted,  the  existence 
of  human  virtue.  It  is  in  vain  that  the  plea  is 
often  entered  on  the  side  of  faith  that,  after 
'all,  Darwin  only  showed  how  Conscience  has 
been  evolved,  perhaps  by  Divine  prearrange- 
ment,  and  that  we  may  allow  its  old  authority 
all  the  same.  He  has  done  much  more  than 
this.  He  has  destroyed  the  possibility  of  re- 


22  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF   THE    AGE 

taining  the  same  reverence  for  the  dictates  of 
conscience.  As  he  himself  asks,  "  Would  any 
of  us  trust  in  the  convictions  of  a  monkey  s 
mind?  .  .  .  The  doubt  always  arises  whether 
the  convictions  of  man's  mind,  which  has  been 
developed  from  the  mind  of  the  lower  animals, 
are  of  any  value"  (Life,  vol.  i.  p.  316.)  Who, 
indeed,  can  attach  the  same  solemn  authority 
to  the  monitions  of  the 

"  Stern  daughter  of  the  Voice  of  God  " 

and  to  the  prejudices  of  ancestors  just  emerg- 
ing from  apehood  ?  It  was  hard  enough  here- 
tofore for  tempted  men  to  be  chaste,  sober, 
honest,  unselfish,  while  passion  was  clamoring 
for  indulgence  or  want  pining  for  relief.  The 
basis  on  which  their  moral  efforts  rested  needed 
to  be  in  their  minds  as  firm  as  the  law  of  the 
universe  itself.  What  fulcrum  will  they  find 
henceforth  in  the  sand-heap  of  hereditary  ex- 
periences of  utility? 

Thus  the  Scientific  Spirit  has  sprung  a  mine 
under  the  deepest  foundations  of  Morality.  It 
may,  indeed,  be  hereafter  countermined.  I  be- 
lieve that  it  will  be  so,  and  that  it  will  be  de- 
monstrated that  many  of  our  broadest  and 
deepest  moral  intuitions  can  have  had  no 
such  origin.  The  universal  human  expecta- 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF   THE    AGE          23 

tion  of  Justice,  to  which  all  literature  bears 
testimony,  can  never  have  arisen  from  such 
infinitesimal  experience  of  actual  Justice,  or 
rather  such  large  experience  of  prevailing  in- 
justice, as  our  ancestors  in  any  period  of 
history  can  have  known.  Nor  can  "the  set 
of  our  (modern)  brains "  against  the  destruc- 
tion of  sickly  and  deformed  infants  have  come 
to  us  from  the  consolidated  experience  of  past 
generations,  since  the  "  utility "  is  all  on  the 
side  of  Spartan  infanticide.  But  for  the  pres- 
ent, and  while  Darwinism  is  in  the  ascendant 
the  influence  of  the  doctrine  of  Hereditary 
Conscience  is  simply  deadly.  It  is  no  more 
possible  for  a  man  who  holds  such  a  theory 
to  cherish  a  great  moral  ambition  than  for  a 
stream  to  rise  above  its  source.  The  lofty 
ideal  of  Goodness,  the  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness,  which  have  been  the  main- 
spring of  heroic  and  saintly  lives,  must  be  ex- 
changed at  best  for  a  kindly  good  nature  and 
a  mild  desire  to  avoid  offence.  The  man  of 
science  may  be  anxious  to  abolish  vice  and 
crime.  They  offend  his  tastes,  and  distract 
him  from  his  pursuits ;  but  he  has  no  long- 
ing to  enthrone  in  their  place  a  positive 
virtue,  demanding  his  heart  and  life's  devotion. 
He  is  almost  as  much  disturbed  by  extreme 


24          THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

goodness  as  by  wickedness.  Nay,  it  has  been 
remarked,  by  a  keen  and  sensitive  observer, 
that  the  companionship  of  a  really  great  and 
entirely  blameless  man  of  science  invariably 
proved  a  "torpedo  touch  to  aspiration." 

An  obvious  practical  result  of  the  present 
influence  of  Science  on  Morals  has  been  the 
elevation  of  Bodily  Health  into  the  summum 
bomim,  and  the  consequent  accommodation  of 
the  standard  of  right  and  wrong  to  that  new 
aim.  An  immense  proportion  of  the  argu- 
ments employed  in  Parliament  and  elsewhere, 
when  any  question  touching  public  health  is 
under  discussion,  rest  on  the  unexpressed  major 
premise  "  that  any  action  which  in  the  opinion 
of  experts  conduces  to  the  bodily  health  of 
the  individual  or  of  the  community  is  ipso 
facto  lawful  and  right."  I  cannot  here  indicate 
the  conclusions  to  which  this  principle  leads. 
Much  that  the  Christian  conscience  now  holds 
to  be  Vice  must  be  transferred  to  the  category 
of  Virtue ;  while  the  medical  profession  will 
acquire  a  Power  of  the  Keys  which  it  is  per- 
haps even  less  qualified  to  use  than  the  Suc- 
cessors of  St.  Peter. 

Another  threatening  evil  from  the  side  of 
Science  is  the  growth  of  a  hard  and  pitiless 
temper.  From  whatsoever  cause  it  arise,  it 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF   THE    AGE  25 

seems  certain  that,  with  some  noteworthy  ex- 
ceptions, the  Scientific  Spirit  is  callous.  In 
the  mass  of  its  literature,  the  expressions  of 
sympathy  with  civilized  or  savage,  healthy  or 
diseased  mankind,  or  with  the  races  below  us, 
are  few  and  far  between.  Men  and  beasts 
are,  in  scientific  language,  alike  "  specimens " 
(wretched  word!);  and,  if  the  men  be  ill  or 
dying,  they  become  "  clinical  material."  The 
light  of  Science  is  a  "dry "one.  She  leaves 
no  glamour,  no  tender  mystery  anywhere. 
Nor  has  she  more  pity  than  Nature  for  the 
weak  who  fall  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 
There  is,  indeed,  a  scientific  contempt  quite 
sui generis  for  the  "poor  in  spirit,"  the  simple, 
the  devoutly  believing, —  in  short,  for  all  the 
humble  and  the  weak, —  which  constitutes  of 
the  Scientific  Spirit  of  the  Age  a  kind  of  Neo- 
Paganism,  the  very  antithesis  of  Christianity. 
I  may  add  that  it  is  no  less  the  antithesis  of 
Theism,  which,  while  abandoning  the  Apoca- 
lyptic side  of  Christianity,  holds  (perhaps  with 
added  consciousness  of  its  supreme  value)  to 
the  spiritual  part  of  the  old  faith,  and  would 
build  the  Religion  of  the  future  on  Christ's 
lessons  of  love  to  God  and  Man,  of  self-sacri- 
fice and  self-consecration. 

Prior  to  experience  it  might  have  been  con- 


26          THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

fidently  expected  that  the  Darwinian  doctrine 
of  the  descent  of  Man  would  have  called  forth 
a  fresh  burst  of  sympathy  towards  all  races  of 
men  and  towards  the  lower  animals.  Every 
biologist  now  knows  tenfold  better  reasons 
than  Saint  Francis  for  calling  the  birds  and 
beasts  "little  brothers  and  sisters."  But,  in- 
stead of  instilling  the  tenderness  of  the  Saint 
of  Assisi,  Science  has  taught  her  devotees  to 
regard  the  world  as  a  scene  of  universal  strug- 
gle, wherein  the  rule  must  be,  "  Every  one  for 
himself,  and  no  God  for  any  one." 

Ten  years  ago  an  eminent  American  phy- 
sician remarked  to  me :  "  In  my  country  the 
ardor  of  scientific  research  is  rapidly  overrid- 
ing the  proper  benevolent  objects  of  my  pro- 
fession. The  cure  of  disease  is  becoming  quite 
a  secondary  consideration  to  the  achievement 
of  a  correct  diagnosis,  to  be  verified  by  a  suc- 
cessful/<w/  mortem?  How  true  this  now  holds 
of  the  state  of  things  in  English  hospitals,  that 
remarkable  book,  "St.  Bernard's,"  and  its  still 
more  important  key,  "Dying  Scientifically," 
have  just  come  in  time  to  testify.*  No  one 

*  Speaking  of  this  latter  book,  the  Manchester  Guardian  (March 
17)  remarked  that  "the  charges  in  'St  Bernard's'  were  supported  by 
details  of  cases  reported  in  medical  journals  and  by  statements  made 
by  lecturers  of  distinction.  The  quotations  are  precise  and  easily 
verified.  The  hospitals  will  do  well  to  take  some  notice  of  a  medical 
man  who  avers  that  the  healing  of  patients  is  subordinated  to  the 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF   THE    AGE          27 

who  has  read  these  books  will  deny  that  the 
purely  Scientific  Spirit  is  (at  all  events  some- 
times) a  merciless  spirit ;  and  that  Dr.  Draper's 
famous  boast,  so  often  repeated,  that  "Science 
has  never  subjected  any  one  to  physical  tort- 
ure "  (Preface  to  "  Conflict,"  p.  xi),  is  untrue. 

Irreverence  appears  to  be  another  "  note  "  of 
the  Scientific  Spirit.  Literature  always  holds 
a  certain  attitude  of  conservatism.  Its  kings 
will  never  be  dethroned.  But  Science  is  essen- 
tially Jacobin.  The  one  thing  certain  about  a 
great  man  of  science  is  that  in  a  few  years  his 
theories  and  books,  like  French  Constitutions, 
will  be  laid  on  the  shelf.  Like  coral  insects, 
the  scientists  of  yesterday,  who  built  the  foun- 
dations of  the  science  of  to-day,  are  all  dead 
from  the  moment  that  their  successors  have 
raised  over  them  another  inch  of  the  inter- 
minable reef.  The  student  of  Literature,  deal- 
ing with  human  life,  cannot  forget  for  a  mo- 
ment the  existence  of  such  things  as  goodness 
which  he  must  honor,  and  wickedness  which 
he  must  abhor.  But  Physical  Science,  dealing 

professional  advantages  of  the  staff  and  the  students,  that  cures  are 
retarded  for  clinical  study,  that  new  drugs  are  tried  upon  hospital 
patients,  who  are  needlessly  examined  and  made  to  undergo  unnec- 
essary operations.  They  cannot  afford  to  pass  over  the  statement 
that  the  dying  are  tortured  by  useless  operations,  and  that  the  blun- 
ders of  students  are  covered  by  their  teachers  for  the  credit  of  the 
hospital."  Every  one  of  these  offences  against  justice  and  humanity 
is  directly  due  to  the  inspiration  of  the  Scientific  Spirit. 


28          THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

with  unmoral  Nature,  brings  no  such  lessons 
to  her  votaries.  There  is  nothing  to  revere 
even  in  a  well-balanced  solar  system,  and  noth- 
ing to  despise  in  a  microbe.  Taking  this  into 
consideration,  it  might  have  been  foreseen  that 
the  Scientific  Spirit  of  the  Age  would  have 
been  deficient  in  reverence ;  and,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  I  think  it  will  be  conceded  that  so 
it  is.  It  is  a  spirit  to  which  the  terms  "im- 
perious" and  "arrogant"  may  not  unfitly  be 
applied,  and  sometimes  we  may  add  "  over- 
bearing," when  a  man  of  science  thinks  fit  to 
rebuke  a  theologian  for  trespassing  on  his 
ground  after  he  has  been  trampling  all  over 
the  ground  of  theology.  Perhaps  the  differ- 
ence between  the  new  "  bumptious  ''  Spirit  of 
Science  and  the  old  exquisitely  modest  and 
reverent  tone  of  Newton  and  Herschel,  Fara- 
day and  Lyell,  is  only  due  to  the  causes  which 
distinguish  everywhere  a  Church  Triumphant 
from  a  Church  Militant.  But,  whatever  they 
may  be,  it  seems  clear  that  it  will  scarcely  be 
in  an  age  of  Science  that  the  prophecy  will 
be  fulfilled  that  "the  meek  shall  inherit  the 
earth."* 

*  It  was  long  before  Science  acquired  her  natural  voice.  For 
more  than  a  thousand  years  she  submitted  servilely  to  Aristotle  and 
his  interpreters.  But  the  Science  of  the  Dark  Ages  was  only  a 
branch  of  learning  of  which  a  Picus  of  Mirandola  or  an  Admirable 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  2Q 

Among  the  delicate  and  beautiful  things 
which  Science  brushes  away  from  life,  I  cannot 
omit  to  number  a  certain  modesty  which  has 
hitherto  prevailed  among  educated  people. 
The  decline  of  decency  in  England,  apparent 
to  every  one  old  enough  to  recall  earlier  man- 
ners and  topics  of  conversation,  is  due  in  great 
measure,  I  think,  to  the  scientific  (medical) 
spirit.  Who  would  have  thought  thirty  years 
ago  of  seeing  young  men  in  public  reading- 
rooms  snatching  at  the  Lancet  and  the  British 
Medical  Journal  from  layers  of  what  ought  to 
be  more  attractive  literature,  and  poring  over 
hideous  diagrams  and  revolting  details  of  dis- 
ease and  monstrosity  ?  It  is  perfectly  right,  no 
doubt,  for  these  professional  journals  to  deal 
plainly  with  these  horrors,  and  with  the  thrice 
abominable  records  of  "gynaecology."  But, 
being  so,  it  follows  that  it  is  not  proper  that 
they  should  form  the  furniture  of  a  reading- 
table  at  which  young  men  and  young  women 
sit  for  general  —  not  medical  —  instruction. 
Nor  is  it  only  in  the  medical  journals  that 

Crichton  could  master  the  whole,  along  with  the  classics  and  mathe- 
matics of  the  period.  The  genuine  Scientific  Spirit  was  not  yet 
born ;  and  when  it  woke  at  last  in  Galileo  and  Kepler,  and  down  to 
our  own  day,  the  Religious  spirit  was  still  paramount  over  the  Scien- 
tific. It  is  only  in  the  present  generation  that  w~  witness  at  once  the 
evolution  of  the  true  scientific  spirit  and  of  scientific  arrogance. 


30  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

disease-mongering  now  obtains.  The  political 
press  has  adopted  the  practice  of  reporting  the 
details  of  illness  of  every  eminent  man  who 
falls  into  the  hands  of  the  doctors,  and  affords 
those  gentlemen  an  opportunity  of  advertising 
themselves  as  his  advisers.  The  last  recollec- 
tion which  the  present  generation  will  retain 
of  many  an  illustrious  statesman,  poet,  and  sol- 
dier, will  not  be  that  he  died  like  a  hero  or  a 
saint,  bravely  or  piously,  but  that  he  swallowed 
such  and  such  a  medicine,  and,  perhaps,  was 
sick  in  his  stomach.  Death-beds  are  desecrated 
that  doctors  may  be  puffed  and  public  inquisi- 
tiveness  assuaged. 

So  far  does  the  materialist  spirit  penetrate 
into  literature  that  in  criticising  books  and  men 
the  most  exaggerated  importance  is  attached 
by  numberless  writers  to  the  physical  condi- 
tions and  "  environments "  of  the  personages 
with  whom  they  are  concerned,  till  we  could 
almost  suppose  that — given  his  ancestry  and 
circumstances  —  we  could  scientifically  con- 
struct the  Man,  with  all  his  gifts  and  passions. 
As  if,  forsooth,  a  dozen  brothers  were  alike  in 
character,  or  even  all  the  kittens  in  a  litter! 
It  is  refreshing  to  read  the  brisk  persiflage 
on  this  kind  of  thing  in  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes  for  March  i.  The  writer,  reviewing 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE          31 

Mr.  Lecky's  books,  states  that  but  little  of 
that  splendid  historian's  private  life  has  been 
published,  and  adds:  — 

"  Je  ne  me  plains  pas  de  cette  secheresse,  je  la  be'nis. 
C'est  un  plaisir,  devenu  si  rare  aujourd'hui,  de  pouvoir  lire 
un  livre  sans  en  connaitre  Tauteur :  de  juger  une  oeuvre 
directement  et  en  elle-meme,  sans  avoir  a  etudier  ce  com- 
pose* d'organes  et  de  tissus,  de  nerfs  et  de  muscles,  d'ou 
elle  est  sortie  :  sans  la  comrnenter  a  1'aide  de  la  physiolo- 
gic, de  1'ethnographie,  et  de  la  climatologie :  sans  mettre 
en  jeu  Tatavisme  et  les  diatheses  hereditaires  !  "  * 

Turn  we  lastly  to  the  influences  of  the 
Scientific  Spirit  on  Religion.  It  is  hardly  too 
much  to  affirm  that  the  advance  of  that  Spirit 
has  been  to  individuals  and  classes  the  signal 
for  a  subsidence  of  religious  faith  and  religious 
emotion.!  Judging  from  Darwin's  experience, 
as  that  of  a  typical  man  of  science,  just  as  such 
a  one  becomes  an  embodiment  of  the  Sci- 

*  While  I  am  writing  these  pages,  the  Globe  informs  us  that  there 
reigns  at  present  in  Paris  a  mania  for  medical  curiosities  and  surgical 
operations.  "  It  has  become  the  right  thing  to  get  up  early  and  hurry 
off  to  witness  some  special  piece  of  dexterity  with  the  scalpel.  The 
novel  yields  its  attraction  to  the  slightly  stronger  realism  of  the  medi- 
cal treatise,  and  the  picture  galleries  have  the  air  of  a  pathological 
museum.  It  is  suggested  that  the  theatres,  if  they  want  to  hold  their 
own,  must  represent  critical  operations  in  a  thoroughly  realistic  man- 
ner on  the  stage." 

t  In  the  very  noteworthy  paper  by  Mr.  Myers  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century  for  May  on  the  "  Disenchantment  of  France,"  there  occurs 
this  remark :  "  In  that  country  where  the  pure  dicta  of  Science  reign 


32  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

entific  Spirit,  this  religious  sentiment  flickers 
and  expires,  like  a  candle  in  an  airless  vault. 
Speaking  of  his  old  feelings  of  "wonder,  admi- 
ration, and  devotion"  experienced  while  stand- 
ing amid  the  grandeur  of  a  Brazilian  forest,  he 
wrote  in  later  years,  when  Science  had  made 
him  all  her  own:  "Now  the  grandest  scenes 
would  not  cause  any  such  convictions  and  feel- 
ings to  rise  in  my  mind.  It  may  be  truly  said 
that  I  am  like  a  man  who  has  become  color- 
blind" (Life,  vol.  i.  p.  31 1).  Nor  did  the  dead- 
ening influences  stop  at  his  own  soul.  As  one 
able  reviewer  of  his  "  Life "  in  the  Spectator 
wrote:  "No  sane  man  can  deny  Darwin's  influ- 
ence to  have  been  at  least  contemporaneous 
with  a  general  decay  of  belief  in  the  unseen. 
Darwin's  Theism  faded  from  his  mind  without 
disturbance,  without  perplexity,  without  pain. 
These  words  describe  his  influence  as  well  as 
his  experience." 

The  causes  of  the  anti-religious  tendency  of 
modern  science  may  be  found,  I  believe:  ist,  in 
the  closing  up  of  that  "  Gate  called  Beautiful," 
through  which  many  souls  have  been  wont  to 

in  the  intellectual  classes  with  less  interference  from  custom,  senti- 
ment, or  tradition,  than  even  in  Germany  itself,  we  should  find  that 
Science,  at  her  present  point,  is  a  depressing  disintegrating  energy  " 
(p.  663).  Elsewhere  he  says  that  France  "makes  M.  Pasteur  her 
national  hero  "  / 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  33 

enter  the  Temple  ;  2d,  in  the  diametric  oppo- 
sition of  its  method  to  the  method  of  spiritual 
inquiry ;  and,  3d,  to  the  hardness  of  character 
frequently  produced  (as  we  have  already  noted) 
by  scientific  pursuits.  These  three  causes,  I 
think,  sufficiently  account  for  the  antagonism 
between  the  modern  Scientific  and  the  Relig- 
ious Spirits,  quite  irrespectively  of  the  bearings 
of  critical  or  philosophical  researches  on  the 
doctrines  of  either  natural  or  traditional  relig- 
ion. Had  Science  inspired  her  votaries  with 
religious  sentiment,  they  would  have  broken 
their  way  through  the  tangle  of  theological 
difficulties,  and  have  opened  for  us  a  highway 
of  Faith  at  once  devout  and  rational.  But  of 
all  improbable  things  to  anticipate  now  in  the 
world  is  a  Scientific  Religious  Reformation. 
Lamennais  said  there  was  one  thing  worse 
than  Atheism ;  namely,  indifference  whether 
Atheism  be  true.  The  Scientific  Spirit  of  the 
Age  has  reached  this  point.  It  is  contented  to 
be  Agnostic,  not  Atheistic.  It  says  aloud,  "  I 
don't  know."  It  mutters  to  those  who  listen, 
"  I  don't  care." 

The  Scientific  Spirit  has  undoubtedly  per- 
formed prodigies  in  the  realms  of  physical 
discovery.  Its  inventions  have  brought  enor- 
mous contributions  to  the  material  well-being 


34  THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE 

of  man,  and  it  has  widened  to  a  magnificent 
horizon  the  intellectual  circle  of  his  ideas.  Yet 
notwithstanding  all  its  splendid  achievements, 
if  it  only  foster  our  lower  mental  faculties 
while  it  paralyzes  and  atrophies  the  higher ;  if 
Reverence  and  Sympathy  and  Modesty  dwindle 
in  its  shadow;  if  Art  and  Poetry  shrink  at  its 
touch;  if  Morality  be  undermined  and  per- 
verted by  it ;  and  if  Religion  perish  at  its  ap- 
proach as  a  flower  vanishes  before  the  frost,— 
then,  I  think,  we  must  deny  the  truth  of  Sir 
James  Paget's  assertion,  that  "  nothing  can  ad- 
vance human  prosperity  so  much  as  science'.' 
She  has  given  us  many  precious  things;  but 
she  takes  away  things  more  precious  still. 


ESSAY  II. 

THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE 
EMOTIONS. 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS. 


HUMAN  Emotions  —  the  most  largely  effec- 
tive springs  of  human  conduct  —  arise  either 
at  first  hand  on  the  pressure  of  their  natural 
stimuli,  or  at  second  hand  by  the  contagion  of 
sympathy  with  the  emotions  of  other  men. 
This  last  source  of  emotion  has  not,  I  conceive, 
received  sufficient  attention  in  practical  systems 
of  education,  and  to  the  consideration  of  ,it  the 
present  paper  will  be  chiefly  devoted. 

Every  human  emotion  appears  to  be  trans- 
missible by  contagion,  and  to  be  also  more 
often  so  developed  than  it  is  solitarily  evolved. 
For  once  that  Courage  or  Terror,  Admiration 
or  Contempt,  or  even  Good-will  and  Ill-will, 
spring  of  themselves  in  the  breast  of  man, 
woman,  or  child,  each  is  many  times  caught 
from  another  mind  possessed  of  the  same  feel- 
ing. By  a  subtle  sympathy,  not  unshared  by 
the  lower  animals,  a  sympathy  which  sometimes 
works  slowly  and  imperceptibly  and  is  some- 


38     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

times  communicated  with  electric  velocity,  one 
man  conveys  to  another,  as  if  it  were  a  flame, 
the  emotion  which  burns  in  his  own  soul. 
Thenceforth  the  recipient  becomes  a  fresh 
propagator  of  the  emotion  to  those  with  whom 
he  in  his  turn  comes  into  physical  contact.  A 
few  instances  may  be  named  to  make  clear  my 
meaning. 

The  most  familiar  example  of  the  contagious- 
ness of  the  emotions,  as  the  reader  will  in- 
stantly recall,  is  that  of  Fear,  which  has  often 
spread  through  whole  armies  with  such  inex- 
plicable celerity  and  fatal  results  that  the  an- 
cients were  fain  to  attribute  the  frenzy  to  the 
malevolence  of  a  god,  and  called  such  terrors 
"  Panic."  The  disasters  which  have  occurred 
during  the  last  few  years  in  so  many  European 
and  American  theatres  and  churches  afford  sad 
evidence  that,  though  "  great  Pan  is  dead,"  our 
liability  to  succumb  to  such  waves  of  fear  has 
not  been  diminished  by  modern  civilization. 
The  proof  of  the  special  power  of  the  con- 
tagion lies  in  this :  that  there  is  every  reason 
to  believe  that  the  majority  of  the  persons  con- 
stituting the  terror-stricken  crowd  would,  if 
alone,  have  met  the  danger  with  reasonable 
composure.  There  is  also  happily,  we  may 
remember,  such  a  thing  as  the  contagion  of 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     39 

Courage  as  well  as  that  of  Terror.  And  many 
a  time  and  oft  in  our  history  the  captain  of  a 
sinking  ship,  the  commander  of  a  retreating 
regiment,  has,  by  his  individual  intrepidity,  re- 
stored the  morale  of  his  men.  Again,  a  remark- 
able instance  of  the  contagiousness  of  emotion 
is  afforded  by  the  Popularity  of  the  men  who 
become  in  any  country  the  idols  of  the  hour. 
The  fact  is  very  well  known  to  the  organizers 
of  claques  and  reclames  in  theatres,  and  of  ova- 
tions in  political  life,  that  it  is  enough  for  a 
small  band  of  friends  in  an  assembly  to  cheer 
and  clap  hands,  to  induce  hundreds,  who  had 
previously  little  interest  in  the  work  or  person 
praised,  to  join  the  hosannas.  When  a  states- 
man has  succeeded  in  arousing  enthusiasm  for 
himself  (possibly  by  persuading  scores  of  people 
and  associations  that  "  all  his  sympathies  are 
with  their"  —  totally  opposite  aims),  he  may 
then  safely  disappoint  each  in  turn  and  veer 
round  to  the  opposite  point  of  the  political  and 
theological  compass  from  which  he  sailed  with 
flowing  canvas.  His  popularity  will  not  be 
forfeited  or  even  lessened ;  for  it  is  a  mere  con- 
tagion of  sentiment,  not  a  rational  or  critical 
judgment.  Herein  lies  the  special  peril  of 
democracies,  that  this  kind  of  contagion  of 
personal  enthusiasm  rapidly  becomes  the  larg- 


4O     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

est  factor  in  their  politics.  From  the  nature 
of  things,  the  masses  cannot  form  judgments 
on  questions  of  state,  referring,  perhaps,  to 
countries  of  which  the  very  names  are  un- 
known to  them ;  and,  therefore,  they  must  of 
necessity  choose  Men,  not  Measures.  When 
we  further  examine  who  are  the  Men  so  chosen 
and  why,  we  arrive  at  the  startling  discovery 
that  it  is  exclusively  by  rhetoric  that  the  con- 
tagious admiration  and  sympathy  of  the  masses 
can  be  roused.  Not  sound  statesmanship,  not 
wise  patriotism,  not  incorruptible  fidelity,  not 
dignified  consistency,  not,  in  short,  any  one 
quality  fitting  a  man  to  be  a  safe  or  able  min- 
ister, attracts  the  enthusiasm  of  the  multitude, 
or  is  even  estimated  at  all  by  them.  The  only 
gift  they  can  appreciate  is  that  which  they 
themselves  would  designate  "  the  Gift  of  the 
Gabr  The  lesson  is  a  grave  one  for  all  free 
countries.  By  such  popular  idolatry  of  great 
talkers  were  all  the  old  republics  of  Greece 
and  Magna  Graecia  brought  to  destruction; 
and  the  men  who  by  such  means  acquired  a 
bastard  royalty  over  them  so  exercised  it  as  to 
make  the  name  of  "  Tyrant "  for  ever  abomi- 
nable. 

As  concerns  emotions  connected  with  Relig- 
ion, the  contagion  of  them  has  been  notorious 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     4! 

in  all  ages,  for  good  or  evil,  according  to  the 
character  of  the  religion  in  question.  The 
intoxication  of  the  dances  of  old  Maenads  and 
the  modern  Dervishes,  the  shrieks  and  self- 
woundings  of  the  priests  of  Baal  and  Cybele, 
the  frenzied  scenes  of  sacrifice  to  Moloch  and 
the  Aztec  gods,  and  a  hundred  other  examples 
will  occur  to  every  reader.  Probably  those  on 
the  largest  scale  of  all  recorded  in  history  were 
the  first  Crusades,  when  "  Europe  precipitated 
itself  on  Asia "  in  a  delirium  of  religious  en- 
thusiasm caught  from  Peter  the  Hermit  and 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux.  The  outbursts  of  the 
Anabaptists,  the  Flagellants  and  Prophets  of 
the  Cevennes,  in  Christendom,  and  of  Moslem 
fanatics  under  Prophets  and  Mahdis  (of  which 
we  have  probably  by  no  means  heard  the  last), 
and  finally  the  Revivals  of  various  sects  in 
England  and  America,  and  the  triumphs  of  the 
Salvation  Army,  are  all  instances  of  the  part 
played  by  the  contagion  of  emotion  in  the 
religion  of  the  community  at  large.  I  shall 
speak  hereafter  of  its  share  in  personal  religious 
experience. 

In  much  smaller  matters  than  religion,  and 
where  no  explosion  reveals  the  contagion  of 
sentiments,  it  is  yet  often  possible  to  trace  the 
spread  of  an  emotion,  good  or  bad,  from  one 


42     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

individual  of  a  family  or  village  to  all  the  other 
members  or  inhabitants.  It  suffices  for  some 
spiteful  boy  or  idle  girl  to  call  a  miserable  old 
woman  a  witch,  or  to  express  hatred  of  some 
foreigner  or  harmless  eccentric,  to  set  afloat 
prejudices  which  end  in  something  approach- 
ing to  persecution  of  the  victims,  who  may  be 
thankful  they  did  not  live  two  hundred  years 
ago,  when,  instead  of  being  boycotted,  they 
would  have  been  burned.  A  child  in  a  school 
or  large  household  who  has  the  misfortune  to 
be  lame  or  ugly,  or  to  exhibit  any  peculiarity 
physical  or  mental,  may,  without  any  fault  on 
its  side,  become  obnoxious  to  the  blind  dislike 
of  a  stupid  servant  or  jealous  step-mother,  and 
then  —  the  contagion  spreading  and  intensify- 
ing as  it  extends  —  to  the  common  hatred  of 
the  little  community, —  a  hatred  justifying  itself 
by  the  sullenness  or  deceptions  to  which  the 
poor  victim  at  last  is  driven.  Even  domestic 
animals  suffer  from  this  kind  of  contagious 
dislike,  and  benefit  on  the  other  hand  by  con- 
tagious admiration  and  fondness.*  "  Give  a 

*I  have  heard  a  pitiful  example  of  this  kind  of  prejudice.  An 
orphan  boy  and  his  ugly  mongrel  dog  were  the  objects  of  universal 
dislike  and  ridicule  in  the  house  of  his  uncle,  a  Scotch  farmer.  The 
lad  always  sat  of  an  evening  far  back  from  the  circle  by  the  fireside, 
with  his  crouching  dog  under  his  stool  lest  it  should  be  kicked.  One 
day  the  little  son  of  the  house,  of  whom  the  farmer  and  his  wife  were 


THE    EDUCATION    OF   THE    EMOTIONS  43 

dog  a  bad  name  and  hang  him "  is  true  in 
more  senses  than  one. 

We  need  not  pursue  this  part  of  the  subject 
further.  Every  day's  experience  may  supply 
fresh  illustrations  of  the  immense  influence  of 
contagion  in  the  development  of  all  human 
emotions.  Nor  is  it  by  any  means  to  be  set 
down  as  a  weakness  peculiar  to  or  characteris- 
tic of  a  feeble  mind  to  be  blindly  susceptible 
of  such  contagion.  Even  the  strongest  wills 
are  bent  and  warped  by  the  winds  of  other 
men's  passions,  persistently  blowing  in  given 
directions.  Original  minds,  gifted  with  what 
the  French  call  r esprit  primesautier,  are  per- 
haps, indeed,  affected  rather  more  than  less 
than  commonplace  people  by  the  emotions  of 
those  around  them,  because  their  larger  natures 
are  more  open  to  the  sympathetic  shock.  Like 
ships  with  all  sails  set,  they  are  caught  by  every 
breeze.  It  is  a  question  of  degree  how  much 
each  man  receives  of  influence  from  his  neigh- 

dotingly  fond,  went  out  with  the  boy  and  dog,  and,  a  snow-storm  com- 
ing on,  they  were  all  lost  on  the  hills.  Next  morning  the  dog  returned 
to  the  farm,  making  wild  signs  that  the  farmer  should  follow  him, 
which  he  and  his  wife  did  at  once,  in  great  anxiety.  At  last,  the 
dog  brought  them  to  a  spot  where  they  found  the  boy  stiff  and 
cold,  but  their  child  still  alive.  The  boy  had  taken  off  his  own  coat 
and  wrapped  it  round  the  child,  whom  he  laid  on  his  breast,  and 
then,  lying  under  him  on  the  snow,  had  died.  Let  us  hope  that  at 
least  the  dog  reaped  some  tardy  fruits  of  the  farmer's  repentance. 


44     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

bors;  but  (to  use  the  new  medical  barbarism) 
we  are  never  "  immune  "  altogether  from  the 
contagion. 

We  may  now  approach  our  proper  subject  of 
the  Education  of  the  Emotions,  carrying  with 
us  the  important  fact  that  no  means  are  so 
efficacious  in  promoting  good  ones  as  the  wise 
employment  of  the  great  agency  of  Contagion; 
and,  further,  that  this  contagion  works  only  by 
exhibiting  the  genuine  emotion  to  the  person 
we  desire  to  influence.  Only  by  being  brave 
can  we  inspire  courage.  Only  by  reverencing 
holy  things  can  we  communicate  veneration. 
Only  by  being  tender  and  loving  can  we  move 
other  hearts  to  pity  and  affection. 

Let  us  glance  over  the  variety  of  circum- 
stances wherein  great  good  might  be  effected 
by  systematic  attention  to  the  natural  laws  of 
the  development  of  the  emotions.  We  may 
begin  by  considering  those  connected  with  the 
education  of  the  young. 

In  the  first  place,  parents  duly  impressed 
with  the  importance  of  the  subject  would  care- 
fully suppress,  or  at  least  conceal,  such  of  their 
own  emotions  as  they  would  regret  to  see 
caught  up  by  their  children.  At  present,  num- 
berless sufficiently  conscientious  fathers  and 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     45 

mothers,  who  would  be  horrified  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  placing  books  teaching  bad  lessons  in 
the  hands  of  their  sons  and  daughters,  yet  care- 
lessly allow  them  to  witness  (and  of  course  to 
receive  the  contagion  of)  all  manner  of  angry, 
envious,  cowardly,  and  scornful  emotions,  just 
as  they  chance  to  be  called  out  in  themselves. 
It  would  be  to  revolutionize  many  homes  to 
induce  parents  to  revise  their  own  sentiments, 
with  a  view  to  deciding  which  they  should  com- 
municate to  their  children.  In  one  way  in 
particular,  the  result  of  such  self-questioning 
might  be  startling.  Every  good  father  desires 
his  son  to  respect  his  mother,  and  would  be 
sorry  to  teach  him  only  the  half  of  the  Fifth 
Commandment — in  words.  Yet  how  do  scores 
of  such  well-meaning  men  set  about  conveying 
the  sentiment  of  reverence  which  they  recog- 
nize will  be  invaluable  to  their  sons  ?  They 
treat  those  same  mothers,  in  the  presence  of 
those  same  sons,  with  such  rudeness,  dismiss 
their  opinions  with  such  levity,  and  perhaps 
exhibit  such  actual  contempt  for  their  wishes 
that  it  is  not  in  nature  but  that  the  boy  will 
receive  a  lesson  of  disrespect.  His  father's 
feelings,  backed  up  as  they  are  by  the  disa- 
bilities under  which  the  Constitution  places 
women,  can  scarcely  fail  to  impress  the  young 


46     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

mind  with  that  contempt  for  women  in  general, 
and  for  his  mother  in  particular,  which  is  pre- 
cisely the  reverse  of  chivalry  and  filial  piety. 
Almost  as  important  as  the  contagion  of 
parental  emotion  is  that  of  the  sentiments  of 
Teachers;  yet  on  this  subject  nobody  seems  to 
think  it  needful  even  to  institute  inquiries.  So 
far  as  I  can  learn,  the  sole  question  asked  now- 
adays when  a  professor  is  to  be  appointed 
to  a  Chair  at  the  Universities  is,  "Whether 
he  be  the  man  among  the  candidates  who 
knows  most  [or  rather  who  has  the  reputation 
of  knowing  most]  of  the  subject  which  he  pro- 
poses to  teach  ? "  This  point  being  ascertained, 
and  nothing  serious  alleged  against  his  moral 
conduct,  the  fortunate  gentleman  receives  his 
appointment  as  a  matter  of  course.  Even 
electors  who  personally  detest  the  notorious 
opinions  of  the  professor  on  religion  or  politics 
acquiesce  cheerfully  in  the  choice ;  apparently 
satisfied  that  he  will  carve  out  to  his  students 
the  particular  pound  of  knowledge  he  is  bound 
to  give  them,  and  not  a  drop  of  blood  besides. 
The  same  principle,  I  presume  (I  have  little 
information  on  the  subject),  prevails  in  schools 
generally,  as  it  does  in  private  education.  A 
professor  or  governess  is  engaged  to  instruct 
boys  or  girls,  let  us  say  in  Latin,  History,  or 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     47 

Physiology,  and  it  is  assumed  that  he  or  she 
will  act  precisely  like  a  teaching  machine  for 
that  particular  subject,  and  never  step  beyond 
its  borders.  A  little  common  sense  would  dis- 
sipate this  idle  presumption, —  supposing  it  to 
be  really  entertained,  and  that  the  mania  for 
cramming  sheer  knowledge  down  the  throats 
of  the  young  does  not  make  their  elders  wil- 
fully disregardful  of  the  moral  poison  which 
may  filter  along  with  it.  Every  human  being, 
as  I  have  said,  exercises  some  influence  over 
the  emotions  of  his  neighbor;  but  that  of  a 
Teacher,  especially  if  he  be  a  brilliant  one, 
over  his  students,  often  amounts  to  a  conta- 
gion of  enthusiasm  throughout  the  class.  His 
admirations  are  adored,  the  objects  of  his  sneers 
despised,  and  every  opinion  he  enunciates  is  an 
oracle.  And  it  is  these  professors  and  teach- 
ers, forsooth,  whose  opinions  on  ethics,  theology, 
and  politics  it  is  not  thought  worth  while  to 
ascertain  before  installing  them  in  their  Chairs 
to  become  the  guides  of  the  young  men  and 
women  who  are  the  hope  of  the  nation ! 

It  does  not  require  any  direct,  or  even  in- 
direct, inculcation  of  opinion  on  the  teacher's 
part  to  do  mischief.  It  is  the  contagion  of  his 
emotions  which  is  to  be  feared,  if  those  emo- 
tions be  base  or  bad.  Let  him  teach  History 


48     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

and  betray  his  enthusiasm  for  selfish  and  san- 
guinary conquerors,  or  justify  assassins  and 
anarchists,  or  jest  —  Gibbon  fashion  —  at  mar- 
tyrs and  heroes,  will  he  not  communicate  those 
base  sentiments  to  his  young  audience  ?  Or 
let  him  teach  Science,  and  convey  to  every 
student's  mind  that  deification  of  mere  knowl- 
edge, that  insolent  sense  of  superiority  in  the 
possession  of  it,  that  remorseless  determination 
to  pursue  it  regardless  of  every  moral  restraint, 
which  is  too  often  the  "  note  "  of  modern  sci- 
entism,  will  the  instruction  he  affords  to  his 
students'  brains  counterbalance  the  harm  he 
will  do  to  their  hearts  ? 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  what  a  splendid 
vantage-ground  for  the  dissemination  not  merely 
of  knowledge,  but  of  elevated  feelings,  is  that 
of  a  Teacher !  Merely  in  teaching  a  dead  or 
modern  language,  a  fine-natured  man  communi- 
cates his  own  glowing  feelings  respecting  the 
masterpieces  of  national  literature  which  it  is 
his  duty  to  expound. 

The  last  point  we  need  notice  as  regards  the 
contagion  of  emotions  among  the  young  is  the 
subject  of  Companions.  Here  again,  as  in 
the  case  of  respect  for  mothers,  there  is  great 
unanimity  in  theory.  Every  one  admits  that 
bad  companions  are  ruinous  for  boys  or  girls. 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     49 

But,  when  it  comes  to  taking  precautions 
against  the  herding  of  innocent  and  well- 
nurtured  children  with  others  who  have  been 
familiar  with  vice,  I  see  little  trace  of  the 
anxious  care  and  discrimination  which  ought 
to  prevail.  Nay,  in  the  case  of  the  children 
of  the  poor,  it  seems  to  me  the  law  is  often 
wickedly  applied  to  compel  good  parents  to 
send  them,  against  their  own  will  and  convic- 
tions, to  sit  beside  companions  who  have  come 
straight  to  school  out  of  slums  of  filth,  moral 
and  physical.  I  have  known  Americans  argue 
that  it  is  right  for  children  of  all  classes  to 
associate  together,  so  that  the  well-trained  may 
communicate  good  ideas  to  the  ill-trained.  The 
reasoning  appears  to  be  on  a  par  with  a  pro- 
posal to  send  healthy  people  to  sleep  in  a 
cholera  hospital.  But,  while  we  allow  our- 
selves to  be  terrified  beyond  bounds  by  alarms 
about  the  infection  of  bodily  disease,  we  take 
hardly  any  precautions  against  the  more  dread- 
ful, and  quite  as  real,  infection  of  moral  cor- 
ruption.* 

*  I  will  cite  an  example  from  my  own  experience,  which  may  help 
to  make  parents  realize  the  subtle  peril  of  which  I  speak.  Twenty- 
five  years  ago  I  was  engaged  in  an  effort  to  help  Mary  Carpenter  in 
the  care  of  the  Red  Lodge  Reformatory  for  girl-thieves  at  Bristol.  Our 
poor  little  charges  had  all  been  convicted  of  larceny,  or  some  kindred 
offence,  but  they  were  not  technically  "fallen  "  girls  :  another  establish- 


5O     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

The  general  sentiment  of  boys  and  youths 
in  the  great  public  schools  and  colleges  of 
England  —  thanks  to  the  high-minded  Masters 
who  have  been  at  their  head  —  is,  on  the  whole, 
good  and  honorable.  It  may  be  taken  for 
granted  that  a  boy  from  Harrow,  Eton,  Rugby, 
Winchester,  Westminster,  or  Uppingham,  and 
a  fortiori  a  man  from  Oxford  or  Cambridge, 
will  despise  lying  and  cowardice  and  admire 
fair  play  and  justice.  How  grand  a  founda- 
tion for  national  character  has  thus  been  laid ! 
What  a  debt  do  we  owe  alike  to  the  Masters 
and  the  "  Tom  Browns  "  who  have  communi- 
cated the  contagion  of  such  noble  emotions! 
In  Continental  lycees  and  academies,  public 
opinion  among  the  boys  is,  by  all  accounts, 
wofully  inferior  to  that  which  is  current  in 
our  great  schools.  There  has  never  been  an 
Arnold  in  a  French  Rugby. 


ment  received  young  women  of  this  "  unfortunate  "  class.  Twice, 
however,  it  happened,  during  my  residence  with  Miss  Carpenter,  that 
girls  who  had  been  on  the  streets  were  by  mistake  sent  to  us  when 
convicted  of  theft,  and  were  of  course  received  and  placed  with  the 
others,  all  being  under  the  most  careful  surveillance  both  in  the 
school-rooms,  playgrounds,  and  dormitory.  Nevertheless,  in  each 
case,  before  the  "  unfortunate  "  had  been  three  days  in  the  Lodge, 
by  some  inexplicable  contagion  the  whole  school  of  fifty  girls  were 
demoralized  so  completely  that  the  aspect  of  the  children  and  change 
in  their  behavior  gave  warning  to  their  experienced  janitress  to  trace 
the  history  of  the  new-comer  more  exactly,  and,  as  the  result 
proved,  to  detect  where  the  infection  had  come  in. 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     51 

As  regards  girls,  their  doubly  emotional  nat- 
ures make  it  a  matter  of  moral  life  and  death 
that  their  companions  (of  whose  emotions  they 
are  perfectly  certain  to  experience  the  conta- 
gion) should  be  pure  and  honorable-minded. 
It  is  most  encouraging  to  every  woman  who 
reads  Mrs.  Pfeiffer's  masterly  new  book,  "  Wo- 
men and  Work,"  to  see  the  rising  generation  of 
girls  displaying  such  splendid  abilities  and  zeal 
for  instruction,  and  —  as  Mrs.  Pfeiffer  amply 
proves — without  paying  for  it  in  loss  of  bodily 
vigor.  Fain  would  I  see  the  "  blessed  Damo- 
zels,"  who  are  still  standing  behind  the  golden 
bars  of  noble  homes,  all  flocking  to  the  new 
colleges  for  women,  as  their  brothers  do  to 
Christchurch  and  Trinity,  there  to  imbibe 
parallel  sentiments  of  truthfulness  and  pluck, 
more  precious  than  Greek,  Latin,  or  mathe- 
matics ! 

Leaving  now  the  subject  of  the  Education  of 
the  Emotions  of  the  Young,  by  parents,  teach- 
ers, and  companions,  I  proceed  to  speak  of  the 
general  education  of  the  emotions  of  the  com- 
munity by  public  and  private  instrumentality, 
—  a  wide  field,  over  which  we  can  only  glance. 
What  machinery  is  disposable  to  cultivate  the 
better  and  discourage  the  lower  emotions, 


52     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

either  by  the  exhibition  of  the  direct  natural 
stimulus  to  the  former  and  withdrawal  of  it  in 
the  latter  cases,  or  by  the  aid  of  contagion? 

In  the  grand  matter  of  Legislation  I  do  not 
know  that  there  is  much  more  to  be  done  than 
has  already  been  achieved  by  the  abolition  of 
those  public  punishments  of  criminals  —  hang- 
ing, drawing  and  quartering,  flogging  at  the 
cart's  tail,  and  the  pillory  —  which  must  have 
been  frightfully  prolific  of  cruel  passions  in  the 
spectators.  To  have  taken  part  in  such  execu- 
tions, e.g.  in  the  old  stonings  to  death,  in  the 
burning  of  witches  and  heretics,  or  in  the 
minor  but  yet  barbarous  and  cowardly  pelting 
of  the  helpless  wretches  in  the  pillory,  must 
have  been  an  apprenticeship  worthy  of  a  Red 
Indian.  Even  to  have  been  a  passive  spectator 
of  a  Newgate  execution  in  later  years,  amid  the 
yelling  crowd,  must  have  been  excessively  de- 
moralizing, and  in  fact  was  at  last  recognized 
by  the  Legislature  to  be  so,  instead  of  a  whole- 
some warning.  It  is  a  cause  for  rejoicing  that 
there  is  an  end  of  this  kind  of  contagious  emo- 
tion in  England,  except  in  the  case  of  experi- 
ments on  animals,  of  which  the  Act  of  1876 
sanctions  the  exhibition  to  classes  under  spe- 
cial certificates  which  require  the  subjects  to 
be  fully  anaesthetized.  On  this  point  the  warn- 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     53 

ing  of  the  late  lamented  Professor  Rolleston 
ought,  I  think,  to  have  sufficed.  He  told  the 
Royal  Commission :  "  The  sight  of  a  living, 
bleeding,  and  quivering  organism  most  un- 
doubtedly does  act  in  a  particular  way  upon 
what  Dr.  Carpenter  calls  the  emotiono-motor 
nature  in  us.  ...  When  men  are  massed 
together,  the  emotiono-motor  nature  is  more 
responsive,  it  becomes  more  sensitive  to  im- 
pression than  it  does  at  other  times,  and  that 
of  course  bears  very  greatly  on  the  question  of 
interference  with  vivisections  before  masses " 
(Minutes,  1287*).  The  time  will  come  when  it 
will  be  looked  upon  as  a  monstrous  inconsist- 


*In  Dr.  Ingleby's  just  published  Essays  there  is  a  very  pertinent 
story  from  Saint  Augustine  concerning  this  contagion  of  the  emotion 
of  cruelty.  A  certain  Alypius  detested,  on  report,  the  spectacle  of 
the  Gladiators,  but  was  induced  to  enter  the  amphitheatre,  protesting 
that  he  would  not  look  at  the  show  :  "  So  soon  as  he  saw  the  blood," 
says  Saint  Augustine,  "  he  therewith  drank  down  savageness ;  nor 
turned  away,  but  fixed  his  eye,  drinking  in  pleasure  unawares,  and 
was  delighted  with  that  guilty  fight,  and  intoxicated  with  the  bloody 
pastime ;  nor  was  he  now  the  man  he  came,  but  one  of  the  throng  he 
came  into." —  Saint  Augustine's  Confessions,  Bk.  vi.,  c.  8.  Similar  per- 
versions occur  at  all  brutal  exhibitions.  A  friend  sends  me  the  fol- 
lowing instance  from  his  own  knowledge.  "A  party  of  English 
people  went  to  the  Bull  Ring  of  San  Sebastian.  When  the  first 
horse  was  ripped  up  and  his  entrails  trailed  on  the  ground,  a  young 
lady  of  the  party  burst  into  tears  and  insisted  on  going  away.  Her 
brothers  compelled  her  to  remain ;  and  a  number  of  horses  were 
then  mutilated  and  killed  before  her  eyes.  Long  before  the  end  of 
the  spectacle  the  girl  was  as  excited  and  delighted  as  any  Spaniard  in 
the  assembly." 


54     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

ency  that  the  spectacle  of  the  execution  of 
murderers  should  be  shut  off  from  the  adult 
population  on  account  of  its  recognized  ill  effects 
in  fostering  contagious  cruelty,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  as  many  as  nineteen  certificates  should 
be  issued  in  one  year  by  the  Home  Office,  spe- 
cially authorizing  the  mutilation  of  harmless 
animals  before  classes  of  young  men  and  women. 
Majestic  public  functions,  coronations,  thanks- 
givings, state  entries  into  great  cities,  and  fu- 
nerals of  distinguished  men  afford  admirable 
machinery  for  the  communication  of  noble  emo- 
tions through  the  masses.  It  was  worth  the 
cost  and  trouble  of  last  year's  Jubilee  ten  times 
over  to  have  sent  through  so  many  brains  and 
hearts  the  thrill  of  sympathy  which  followed 
the  Queen  to  the  old  throne  of  her  fathers, 
while  the  kings  of  the  earth  stood  around  her 
as  witnesses  that  she  had  kept  the  oath  to  her 
people,  sworn  there  fifty  years  before.  For  one 
day  England  and  all  her  vast  colonies  beat  with 
one  heart,  and  the  contagion  of  loyal  emotion, 
love,  reverence,  pride,  and  pity,  for  woman, 
empress,  mother,  widow,  ran  round  the  globe. 
Sad  was  it  (as  many  must  have  remembered) 
that  he  who  would  have  found  the  true  words  to 
give  utterance  to  the  sentiment  in  the  heaving 
breast  of  the  nation,  he  whose  proud  duty  it 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     55 

would  have  been  to  welcome  the  Queen  to  his 
own  Abbey,  was  lying  on  that  day  silent  be- 
neath its  pavement. 

Beyond  Legislation  and  Public  Functions, 
the  largest  influence  which  sways  the  emotions 
of  all  educated  people  is  undoubtedly  Litera- 
ture. The  power  of  Books  to  awaken  the  most 
vivid  feelings  is  a  phenomenon  at  which  sav- 
ages may  well  wonder.  The  magic  which 
enables  both  the  living  and  the  long  departed 
to  move  us  to  the  depths  of  our  being  by  the 
aid  only  of  a  few  marks  on  sheets  of  paper  is  a 
never-ending  miracle.  It  were  vain  to  attempt 
to  do  any  justice  to  the  subject,  or  show  how 
the  contagion  of  piety,  patriotism,  enthusiasm 
for  justice  and  truth,  and  sympathy  with  other 
nations  and  other  classes  than  our  own,  is 
borne  to  us  in  the  pages  of  the  poets  and  his- 
torians and  novelists  of  the  world.  Pitiful  it  is 
to  think  how  narrow  must  ,be  the  scope  of  the 
emotions  of  any  man  whose  breast  has  never 
dilated  nor  his  eyes  flashed  over  the  grandeur 
of  the  Book  of  Job,  over  Dante  or  Shakspere, 
and  whose  heart  has  never  been  warmed  and 
his  sympathies  extended,  backwards  through 
time  and  around  him  in  space,  by  Walter  Scott, 
and  Defoe,  and  Dickens,  and  George  Eliot. 
Alas  that  we  must  add  that  Literature  can 


56     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

not  only  kindle  the  noblest  emotions,  but  also 
light  up  baleful  fires,  of  the  basest  and  most 
sensual, —  to  look  for  which  we  have  not  now 
even  to  cross  the  Channel !  M.  Zola  has  been 
translated  into  English. 

After  Literature  I  presume  that  the  Stage  is 
the  greatest  public  agency  for  the  promotion  of 
fine  emotions,  and  it  is  to  the  honor  of  human 
nature  that  it  is  found  (at  least  in  our  country) 
to  be  most  popular  when  it  fulfils  its  office  best, 
and  calls  out  sympathy  for  generous  and  heroic 
actions.  When  the  Roman  audience  rose  en 
masse  to  applaud  the  line  of  Terence  which  first 
proclaimed  the  brotherhood  of  man, —  "  Homo 
sum:  humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto,"- 
the  highest  mission  of  the  Drama  was  fulfilled. 
Of  course  no  one  desires  the  string  of  high 
emotion  to  be  exclusively  or  perpetually  harped 
upon  ;  and  for  my  own  part  I  think  that  the 
mere  production  of  the  emotion  of  harmless 
merriment  is  one  of  the  greatest  boons  of  the 
stage.  The  contagion  of  laughter,  in  a  theatre 
or  out  of  it,  is  an  altogether  wholesome  and 
beneficent  thing.  How  it  unseats  black  Care 
from  our  backs !  How  it  carries  away,  as  on  a 
fresh  spring  breeze,  a  whole  swarm  of  buzzing 
worries  and  grievances !  How  it  warms  our 
hearts  for  ever  after  to  the  people  with  whom 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     57 

we  have  once  shared  a  good  honest  fou  rire! 
"  Behold  how  good  and  how  pleasant  a  thing 
it  is  for  brethren  to  dwell  together  in  unity," 
and  (with  all  respect  let  us  add)  in  hilarity !  A 
good  joke  partaken  with  a  man  is  like  the 
Arab's  salt.  Our  common  emotion  of  humor- 
ous pleasure  is  a  bond  between  us  which  we 
would  not  thereafter  lightly  break. 

The  education  of  the  emotions  of  actors  and 
actresses,  apart  from  that  which  they  afford  to 
the  emotions  of  the  public,  is  a  very  curious 
subject  of  consideration.  Great  part  of  the 
training  of  an  actor  consists  in  learning  to  give 
the  uttermost  possible  external  expression  to 
those  emotions  which  it  is  the  task  of  other 
people  to  reduce  to  a  vanishing  point.  Un- 
doubtedly (as  one  of  the  most  gifted  of  the  pro- 
fession has  remarked),  the  "  habit  of  represent- 
ing fictitious  feeling  tends  to  produce  a  super- 
ficial sensibility,  and  an  exaggerated  mode  of 
expressing  the  same."  But  it  may  be  ques- 
tioned whether  this  extreme  be  worse  than  the 
opposite,  wherein  the  expression  of  the  emo- 
tions is  so  effectually  repressed  that  the  feel- 
ings themselves  die  out  for  want  of  air  and 
exercise, —  a  consummation  not  unknown  in 
the  reposeful  "  caste  of  Vere  de  Vere." 

Besides  Literature  and  the  Stage,  Music  no 


58     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

doubt  is  a  most  marvellous  agency  for  calling 
out  Emotion.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  Art  of  Emotion. 
The  musician  plays  with  the  strings  of  the 
human  heart  while  he  touches  those  of  his  in- 
strument. Since  Collins  wrote  his  "  Ode  to  the 
Passions"  and  Pope  his  "  Ode  on  Saint  Cecilia's 
Day,"  there  is  no  need  to  describe  how  every 
emotion  known  to  man  may  be  brought  out  by 
music.  Something  may  well  be  hoped  for  a 
generation  which,  rejecting  the  more  trivial 
and  sensuous  music  of  Italy,  finds  delight  in 
the  exalted  play  of  the  emotions  which  follows 
the  wands  of  Bach  and  Beethoven  and  Wag- 
ner. The  efforts  now  made  to  offer  music  at 
once  cheap  and  good  to  as  many  of  the  work- 
ing classes  as  can  be  found  to  enjoy  it  is 
perhaps  the  most  direct  way  conceivable  of  fos- 
tering their  best  emotions. 

The  Beauty  of  Nature  and  of  Art  are  also 
powerful  levers  of  the  higher  emotions,  which 
it  becomes  us  to  use  for  the  benefit  of  our 
fellows  whenever  it  is  practicable  to  do  so. 

But,  while  these  varied  engines  are  at  work 
to  stir  beneficently  the  emotions  of  the  masses, 
there  are  on  the  other  hand  certain  agencies  in 
full  play  amongst  us  which  have,  I  fear,  a  totally 
different  effect ;  which,  in  fact,  can  only  tend  to 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     59 

deaden,  if  not  destroy,  the  most  precious  of  emo- 
tions, those  of  family  affection.  I  do  not  know 
that  the  question  has  ever  been  faced :  What 
are  the  moral  effects  of  our  enormous  Hos- 
pitals ?  From  the  side  of  the  bodily  interests  of 
the  patients,  they  may  be  wholly  advantageous.* 
But  as  regards  the  sacred  institutions  of  the 
Family,  on  which  society  itself  is  based,  I  ask 
what,  except  evil,  can  result  from  the  habitual 
separation  of  relatives  the  moment  that  illness 
makes  a  claim  for  tenderness  and  care  ? 

It  is  the  law  of  human  nature  that  the  senti- 
ment of  sympathy  should  be  drawn  forth  by 
personal  service  to  the  suffering ;  and  feelings 
of  gratitude  and  affection  by  the  receipt  of 
such  personal  service.  In  comparison  of  these 
sources  of  emotion,  those  which  act  in  times  of 
prosperity  are  weak  and  poor.  If  we  subtract 
in  imagination  from  our  own  affections  those 
which  have  come  to  us  either  through  nursing 
or  being  nursed  in  sickness  and  danger,  the 
residue  will  represent  all  which  we  leave  within 
reach  of  the  million.  Many  of  us  can  remem- 
ber quarrels  which  have  been  reconciled,  un- 
kindnesses  atoned  for,  and  bonds  of  sacred 

*  Readers  of  that  singular  book,  "  St.  Bernard's  "  (Swan,  Sonnen- 
schein  &  Co.,  1887,  new  edition  1888),  and  its  sequel,  "Dying 
Scientifically,"  may  possibly  entertain  doubts  on  this  subject. 


6O     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

union  in  faith  and  eternal  hope  linked  beside 
beds  of  pain  when  death  seemed  standing  at 
the  door.  These  things  form  some  of  the 
highest  educational  influences  which  Provi- 
dence brings  to  bear  on  the  human  spirit,  and 
out  of  them  arise  the  sweetest  affections,  the 
warmest  gratitude,  the  most  vivid  sense  of  a 
common  nearness  to  God  and  the  Immortal 
Life. 

And  of  all  this  the  entire  working  class  of 
the  nation  is  systematically  deprived !  Formerly 
it  was  only  in  cases  of  extreme  poverty,  where 
the  crowded  lodging  was  an  altogether  unfit 
place  to  nurse  the  sufferer,  that  recourse  was  had 
to  the  public  Hospitals.  Now  it  has  become 
the  invariable  practice  the  moment  that  illness, 
even  of  non-infectious  kind,  declares  itself,  to 
send  straight  away  to  the  hospital  artisans, 
small  tradesmen,  and  farmers  from  their  own 
comfortable  abodes,  servants  from  the  large 
and  airy  houses  where  they  have  labored  faith- 
fully, and  even  children  from  their  mothers' 
arms.  It  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  conjecture 
that  such  a  custom  must  do  harm  and  weaken 
the  sense  of  family  obligation.  It  is  a  fact  that 
it  has  done  so  already,  and  is  doing  so  more 
every  day.  Sons  and  daughters  place  their 
blind  and  palsied  parents  in  asylums;  wives 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     6 1 

send  their  husbands  in  a  decline  to  Brompton 
Hospital;  and  it  has  become  a  surprising  piece 
of  filial  devotion  if  a  daughter  remain  at  home 
to  take  care  of  a  bed-ridden  mother,  even  when 
her  means  fully  permit  of  such  sacrifice  of  time. 
What  deadly  injury  is  all  this  to  the  hearts  of 
men,  women,  and  children  ! 

Of  course  Hospitals  have  their  important 
uses.  No  one  denies  it.  Some  cases  of  dis- 
ease and  some  degrees  of  poverty  require  such 
institutions.  But  this  does  not  justify  the 
monstrous  over-use  of  them  now  in  vogue. 
Even  for  the  class  whose  homes  are  too 
crowded  to  admit  of  nursing  being  properly 
or  safely  done  in  them,  I  cannot  but  think 
that  small  Cottage  Hospitals,  where  the  wife 
or  mother  or  daughter  would  be  free  to  per- 
form her  natural  duties  by  the  bedside,  and 
where  she  would  be  shown  how  best  to  per- 
form them,  would  be  infinitely  preferable  for 
every  reason,  moral  and  physical,  to  our  pres- 
ent Palaces  of  Pain.  Excellent  also  in  all 
ways  will  be  the  plan  of  Nurses  provided  for 
the  poor  in  their  own  homes  by  the  Queen's 
wise  gift  of  the  balance  of  her  Women's  Jubi- 
lee Fund.  The  secret  of  the  excessive  resort 
to  Hospitals  is  of  course  the  encouragement 
to  patients  given  by  the  medical  schools  at- 


62     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

tached   to  them,  for  the  sake   of   obtaining  a 
large  supply  of  "  clinical  material." 

Lastly,  we  come  to  speak  of  the  Education 
of  the  Religious  Emotions.  We  have  already 
referred  to  the  outbursts  of  contagious  enthu- 
siasm in  the  Crusades  and  Revivals.  It  re- 
mains to  say  a  few  words  respecting  the 
various  sources  of  religious  emotion,  at  first 
and  second  hand. 

A  fundamental  difference  between  the  Cath- 
olic and  Puritan  mind  seems  to  be  that  the 
former  seizes  on  every  available  means  for  pro- 
ducing religious  emotion  through  the  senses; 
the  latter  turns  away  from  such  means  with 
intense  mistrust,  and  limits  itself  to  appeals 
through  the  mind.  Dark  and  solemn  churches 
like  that  at  Assisi  decorated  by  Giotto  (which 
the  friar  who  showed  it  told  me  was  the  "  best 
place  in  the  whole  world  for  prayer  "),  gorgeous 
altars,  splendid  functions,  pictures,  music,  in- 
cense,—  all  these  are  to  the  Catholic  and  High 
Churchman  veritable  "means  of  grace";  i.e., 
they  call  out  in  them  emotions  which  either 
are  religious  or  they  think  lead  to  religion. 
Long  Prayers,  Hymns,  Bible-readings,  and 
preachings, —  these,  on  the  other  hand,  are  the 
Evangelicals'  means  of  grace,  and  they  pro- 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     63 

duce  in  them  emotions  distinctly  religious. 
We  must,  I  think,  treat  these  differences  as 
matters  of  spiritual  taste,  concerning  which  it 
is  proverbially  idle  to  dispute.  Both  have 
their  advantages,  and  both  their  great  perils: 
the  Catholic  method  has  the  peril  of  lapping 
the  soul  in  a  fool's  paradise  of  fancied  piety, 
which  is  only  sensuous  excitement;  the  Puri- 
tan method  has  that  of  creating  the  hysteria 
of  a  Revival.  In  each  case  it  is  the  contagion 
of  the  emotion  of  a  multitude  which  creates  the 
danger.  Solitary  religious  emotion,  either  pro- 
duced by  the  glory  and  majesty  of  Nature  or 
by  lonely  prayer  and  communings  with  God, 
can  lead  to  no  evil ;  nay,  is  the  climax  of 
purest  joy  vouchsafed  to  man.  Not  misguided 
are  those  who  enter  into  their  chambers  and 
shut  the  door  "to  pray  to  Him  who  sees  in 
secret,"  or  who  go  up  into  the  hills  and  woods 

"  To  seek 

That  Being  in  whose  honor  shrines  are  weak, 
Upreared  by  human  hands." 

The  converse  of  the  emotions  of  Awe  and 
Reverence  —  namely,  the  tendency  to  jest  and 
ridicule  —  are  supposed  by  some  to  be  danger- 
ous enemies  to  religion.  I  do  not  believe  they 
are  so.  I  think  a  genuine  sense  of  humor  and 
a  keen  eye  for  the  ludicrous  is  a  most  precious 


64     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

protection  against  absurdities  and  excesses. 
Like  Tenderness  and  Strength,  the  sense  of 
the  Sublime  and  of  the  Ridiculous  are  com- 
plementary to  each  other,  and  exist  only  in 
perfection  together  in  the  same  character.  It 
is  the  man  who  cannot  laugh  who  never 
weeps. 

Finally,  we  reach  the  point  where  the  relig- 
ious emotions,  produced  either  alone  or  by 
contagion,  effect  the  greatest  of  spiritual  mira- 
cles :  that  "  conversion "  or  revulsion  of  the 
soul  which  ancient  India,  no  less  than  Chris- 
tendom, likened  to  a  New  or  Second  Birth. 
It  would  appear  that,  when  this  mysterious 
change  does  not  take  place  by  the  solitary  work 
of  the  Divine  on  the  human  spirit,  it  does  so 
by  the  attractive  power  of  another  human  soul, 
which  has  itself  already  undergone  the  great 
transformation.  It  is  the  living  Saint  who 
conveys  spiritual  life.  He  need  not  be  a  very 
great  or  far  advanced  soul  in  the  spiritual 
realm.  Many  a  simple  person  with  no  excep- 
tional gifts  has  "  turned  to  the  wisdom  of  the 
just "  the  hearts  of  strong  men,  whom  the  most 
eloquent  and  thoughtful  of  preachers  have 
failed  to  move  by  a  hair.  But  the  greater  the 
saint,  the  greater  naturally  must  be  his  power. 
It  was  the  contagion  of  Divine  Love,  caught 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     65 

from  him  who  felt  it  most  of  all  the  sons  of 
men,  which  moved  the  little  band  in  the 
upper  chamber  of  Jerusalem  —  who  moved  the 
world. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  when  a  man  so 
powerfully  influences  another  as  to  "convert" 
him  in  the  true  sense,  i.e.  to  bring  him  to  the 
higher  spiritual  life,  it  very  often  happens  that 
at  the  same  time  he  "  converts "  him  in  the 
lower  sense,  to  the  doctrines  of  the  special 
Church  to  which  he  himself  belongs.  The 
man  has  received  the  impulse  of  religion  from 
that  particular  direction.  It  has  come  to  him 
colored  by  the  hues  of  his  friend's  piety,  and 
he  accepts  it,  doctrines  and  all,  as  he  finds  it. 
The  matter  has  been  one  of  emotional  con- 
tagion, not  of  critical  argument  on  either  side. 

It  is  impossible  to  form  the  faintest  estimate 
of  the  good  —  the  highest  kind  of  good  — 
which  a  single  devout  soul  may  accomplish  in 
a  lifetime  by  spreading  the  holy  contagion  of 
the  Love  of  God  in  widening  circles  around  it. 
But  just  as  far  as  the  influence  of  such  men  is 
a  cause  for  thankfulness,  so  great  would  be  the 
calamity  of  a  time,  if  such  should  ever  arrive, 
when  there  should  be  a  dearth  of  saints  in  the 
world,  and  the  fire  on  the  altar  should  die 
down.  A  Glacial  Period  of  Religion  would 


66     THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS 

kill  many  of  the  sweetest  flowers  in  human 
nature ;  and  woe  to  the  land  where  (as  it  would 
seem  is  almost  the  present  case  in  France  at 
this  moment)  the  priceless  tradition  of  Prayer 
is  being  lost,  or  only  maintained  in  fatal  con- 
nection with  outworn  superstitions. 

To  resume  the  subject  of  this  paper.  We 
have  seen  that  the  Emotions,  which  are  the 
chief  springs  of  human  conduct,  may  either  be 
produced  by  their  natural  stimuli  or  conveyed 
by  contagion  from  other  minds,  but  that  they 
can  neither  be  commanded  nor  taught.  If  we 
desire  to  convey  good  and  noble  emotions  to 
our  fellow-creatures,  the  only  means  whereby 
we  can  effect  that  end  is  by  filling  our  own 
hearts  with  them  till  they  overflow  into  the 
hearts  of  others.  Here  lies  the  great  truth 
which  the  preachers  of  Altruism  persistently 
overlook.  It  is  better  to  be  good  than  to  do 
good.  We  can  benefit  our  kind  in  no  way  so 
much  as  by  being  ourselves  pure  and  upright 
and  noble-minded.  We  can  never  teach  Relig- 
ion to  such  purpose  as  we  can  live  it. 

It  was  my  privilege  to  know  a  woman  who 
for  more  than  twenty  years  was  chained  by  a 
cruel  malady  to  what  Heine  called  a  "  mattress 
grave."  Little  or  nothing  was  it  possible  for 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  EMOTIONS     67 

her  to  do  for  any  one  in  the  way  of  ordinary 
service.  Her  many  schemes  of  usefulness  and 
beneficence  were  all  stopped.  Yet,  merely  by 
attaining  to  the  lofty  heights  of  spiritual  life 
and  knowledge,  that  suffering  woman  helped 
and  lifted  up  the  hearts  of  all  who  came  around 
her,  and  did  more  real  good,  and  of  the  highest 
kind,  than  half  the  preachers  and  philanthro- 
pists in  the  land.  Even  now,  when  her  beauti- 
ful soul  has  been  released  at  last  from  its 
earthly  cage,  it  still  lifts  many  who  knew  her  to 
the  love  of  God  and  Duty  to  remember  what 
she  was,  and  to  the  faith  in  immortality  to 
think  what  now  she  must  be,  within  the  golden 
gates. 


ESSAY   III. 


PROGRESSIVE  JUDAISM. 


PROGRESSIVE  JUDAISM. 


WHEN  the  new  "  Science  of  Religions  "  has 
been  further  developed,  it  will  probably  be  rec- 
ognized that  the  character  of  each  is  deter- 
mined, not  only  by  its  own  proper  dogmas,  but 
by  those  of  the  religion  which  it  has  super- 
seded. Men  do  not,  as  they  often  imagine, 
tear  up  an  old  faith  by  the  roots  and  plant  a 
new  one  on  the  same  ground.  They  only  cut 
across  the  old  and  graft  the  new  on  its  stem. 
Thus  it  comes  to  pass,  for  example,  that  much 
of  the  sap  of  Roman  Paganism  runs  through 
the  pores  of  Latin  Christianity,  and  much  of 
that  of  Odin  worship  through  those  of  Teuton 
and  Scandinavian  Protestantism.  Still  more 
certainly  does  the  faith  held  by  an  individual 
man  in  his  earlier  years  dye  his  mind  with  its 
peculiar  color,  so  that  no  subsequent  conver- 
sion ever  wholly  obliterates  it,  but  makes  him 
like  a  frescoed  wall  on  which  yellow  has  been 
painted  over  blue,  leaving  as  the  result — green. 


72  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

The  tint  of  Anglican  piety  may  be  discerned 
even  beneath  a  pervert  Cardinal's  scarlet  robe. 
A  Romish  acolyte,  transformed  into  the  most 
brilliant  of  sceptical  essayists,  still  boasts  that 
the  ecclesiastical  set  of  his  brain  enables  him 
"alone  in  his  century"  to  understand  Christ 
and  Saint  Francis.*  A  Jew,  baptized  and  be- 
come Prime  Minister  of  England,  wrote  novels 
and  made  history  altogether  in  the  vein  of  the 
author  of  the  Book  of  Esther.  Beneath  the 
wolf's  clothing  of  the  whole  pack  of  modern 
Secularists,  Agnostics,  and  Atheists,  friction 
reveals  (for  the  present  generation,  at  all 
events)  a  flock  of  harmless  Christian  sheep. 
For  this  reason  hasty  efforts  to  fuse  relig- 
ious bodies  which  happen  to  manifest  tenden- 
cies to  doctrinal  agreement  seem  predestined 
to  failure.  Much  else  besides  mere  readiness 
to  pronounce  similar  symbols  of  faith  is  needed 
to  gather  men  permanently  into  one  temple. 
Amalgamation  attempted  prematurely  can  only 
result  in  accentuating  those  diversities  of  senti- 
ment which  have  stronger  power  to  dissever 
than  any  intellectual  affinities  have  charms 
to  unite.  Ecclesiastical  schisms  are  infinitely 
easier  to  effect  than  ecclesiastical  coalitions. 

*"C'est  pourquoi,  seul  dans  mon  siecle,  j'ai  su  comprendre  Jesus 
Christ  et  St.  Frai^ois  d'Assise." — M.  Renan. 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  73 

Nevertheless,  the  levelling  of  the  fences 
which  have  for  ages  kept  men  of  different 
religions  apart  is,  per  se,  a  matter  for  such 
earnest  rejoicing  that  we  may  well  exult  at  any 
instance  of  it,  independently  of  ulterior  hopes 
or  projects.  Especially  must  our  sympathies 
with  those  who  are  thus  clearing  the  ground 
be  quickened  when  the  faith  to  be  dis-itnmured 
is  an  old  and  venerable  one,  the  nearest  of  all 
to  our  own, —  a  faith  whereof  any  important 
modification  must  be  fraught  with  incalculable 
consequences  to  the  civilized  world.  The  new 
Reform  among  the  Jews  is  emphatically  such 
a  movement, —  an  effort  to  throw  down  the 
high  and  jealous  walls  behind  which  Judaism 
has  kept  itself  in  seclusion.  The  gates  of  the 
Ghettos,  which  for  a  thousand  years  shut  in 
the  Jews  at  night  in  every  city  in  Europe,  were 
not  more  rigid  obstacles  to  social  sympathy 
and  intercourse  than  have  been  the  nation's 
own  iron-bound  prejudices  and  customs.  But 
just  as  these  Ghettos  themselves,  so  long  "  lit- 
tle provinces  of  Asia  dropped  into  the  map 
of  Europe,"  have  been  thrown  open  at  last  by 
the  growing  enlightenment  of  Christian  States, 
so  the  Jewish  moral  walls  of  prejudice  are 
being  cast  down  by  the  advanced  sentiment  of 
cultured  Jews. 


74  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

It  is  the  specialty  of  the  higher  religions  to 
unfold  continually  new  germs  of  truth,  while 
the  lower  ones  remain  barren  and  become  over- 
grown with  the  rank  fungi  of  myth  and  fable. 
I  do  not  speak  now  of  the  results  of  external 
influences  bearing  on  every  creed,  and  tending 
to  vivify  and  fructify  it.  Such  influences  have 
done  much,  undoubtedly,  even  for  Christianity 
itself,  which  has  been  stirred  by  all  the  agencies 
of  the  Saracen  conquests,  the  classic  Renais- 
sance, modern  ethics  and  metaphysics,  modern 
critical  science,  and  at  last  in  our  time  by  the 
extension  of  the  theological  horizon  over  the 
broad  plains  of  Eastern  sacred  literature.  I 
am  speaking  specially  of  the  prolific  power  of 
the  richer  creeds  to  go  on,  generation  after 
generation,  bringing  forth  fresh,  golden  har- 
vests, like  the  valleys  of  California.  If  we  look 
for  an  instance  of  the  opposite  barrenness,  we 
shall  find  it  in  the  worn-out  religions  of  China, 
ice-bound  and  arid  as  the  desolate  plains  and 
craters  of  the  moon;  the  Tae-ping  rebellion 
having  been  perhaps  a  solitary  development  of 
heat  caused  by  the  impingement  on  them  of 
the  orb  of  Christianity.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  seek  for  a  supreme  instance  of  fertility,  we 
find  it  in  the  religion  of  Nazareth,  which  seems 
to  enjoy  perpetual  seed-time  and  perpetual 
harvest. 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  75 

The  question  is  one  of  more  than  historical 
interest:  Is  Judaism  likewise  a  religion  capable 
of  bearing  fresh  corn  and  wine  and  oil  for  the 
nations  ?  We  know  that  both  Christianity  and 
Islam  are  developments  of  the  Jewish  idea, — 
the  Semitic  development  (Islam)  carrying  out 
its  monotheistic  doctrine  in  all  its  rigidity,  but 
losing  somewhat  on  the  moral  and  spiritual 
side;  the  Aryan  development  (Christianity) 
abandoning  the  strictly  monotheistic  doctrine, 
but  carrying  far  forward  the  moral  and  the 
spiritual  part.  But  both  these  Banyan-like 
branches  have  struck  root  for  themselves,  and 
their  growth  can  no  longer  be  treated  as  de- 
rived from  the  trunk  of  Judaism.  Our  prob- 
lem is,  Can  Judaism  further  develop  itself  along 
its  own  lines  ?  Or  is  it  (as  generally  believed) 
destined  to  permanent  immobility,  with  no  pos- 
sible future  before  it  save  gradual  dismember- 
ment  and  decay?  Shall  we  best  liken  it  to 
Abraham's  oak  at  Mam  re,  whose  leaf  has  not 
failed  after  three  thousand  years  of  sun  and 
storm,  and  when  the  very  levin-bolt  of  heaven 
has  blasted  its  crown, —  or  to  the  hewn  and 
painted  mast  of  some  laden  argosy  wherein  float 
the  fortunes  of  Israel  ? 

There  are,  it  would  appear,  three  parties  now 
existing  among  modern  Jews.  There  is,  first, 


76  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

the  large  Orthodox  party,  which  holds  by  the 
verbal  inspiration  of  the  Old  Testament  and 
the  authority  of  the  Talmud.* 

Secondly,  there  is  the  party  commonly  called 
that  of  Reformed  Jews,  which  separated  about 
forty  years  ago  from  the  Orthodox  by  a  schism 
analogous  to  that  which  cut  off  the  Free  Kirk 
from  the  Kirk  of  Scotland.  The  raisons  d'etre 
of  this  reform  were  certain  questions  of  ritual 
(the  older  ritual  having  fallen  into  neglect)  and 
the  relinquishment  by  the  reforming  party  of 
the  authority  of  the  Talmud.  The  progress  so 
effected  occasioned  great  heart-burnings, —  now 
happily  extinguished, —  and  proceeded  no  fur- 
ther than  these  very  moderate  reforms.! 

*The  heads  of  this  party  in  England  are  the  venerable  Rabbi 
Nathan  Adler  and  his  son  and  colleague,  Rev.  Herman  Adler,  who 
hold  a  kind  of  Patriarchate  over  all  English  Orthodox  Jews.  The 
principal  synagogue  of  this  party  (to  which  the  Rothschild  family 
hereditarily  belongs,  also  the  Cohens,  Sir  G.  Jessel,  etc.)  is  in  Great 
Portland  Street.  The  Eglise  mtre  is  in  the  City,  and  there  are  many 
other  synagogues  belonging  to  it  scattered  over  London  and  England. 
The  Portuguese  branch  of  the  Orthodox  party  (the  most  rigidly  Or- 
thodox of  all),  to  which  Sir  Moses  Montefiore  belonged,  has  its  chief 
synagogue  in  Bevis  Marks.  The  late  distinguished  Rabbi  Artom, 
brother  of  Cavour's  private  secretary,  was  minister  of  this  synagogue. 

t  The  Reformed  Jews,  among  whom  Sir  Julian  Goldsmid  and  Mr. 
F.  D.  Mocatta  hold  distinguished  places,  have  only  one  synagogue  in 
London,  that  in  Berkeley  Street.  The  minister  of  this  wealthy  and 
important  congregation  is  the  Rev.  D.  Marks.  A  special  liturgy,  dif- 
fering chiefly  from  the  Orthodox  by  omissions  of  Talmudic  passages, 
is  in  use  in  this  synagogue. 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  77 

Lastly,  there  is  a  third  Jewish  party,  existing 
chiefly  in  Germany  and  America,  and  number- 
ing a  few  members  among  the  younger  genera- 
tions in  England.  For  convenience'  sake,  I 
shall  distinguish  it  from  the  older  Reformed 
party  by  calling  it  the  party  of  the  New 
Reform,  or  of  Broad  Church  Jews,  the  analogy 
between  its  attitude  towards  Orthodox  Judaism 
and  that  of  the  late  lamented  Dean  Stanley 
and  his  friends  to  the  Church  of  England  being 
singularly  close. 

The  attitude  even  of  the  Orthodox  and  older 
Reformed  Jews  (alike  for  our  present  purpose) 
is,  theoretically,  not  wholly  unprogressive,  not 
necessarily  purely  tribal.  They  have  admitted 
principles  inconsistent  with  stagnant  tribalism. 
They  believe  that,  though  the  ceremonialism  of 
Judaism  is  for  Jews  alone,  yet  the  mission  of 
Judaism  is  to  spread  through  all  the  nations 
its  great  central  doctrine  of  the  Unity  of  God. 
As  Philipsohn  (who,  it  is  said,  has  since  some- 
what receded  from  his  position)  observed  in  his 
Lectures  so  far  back  as  1847  :  — 

Judaism  has  never  declared  itself  to  be  in  its  specific 
form  the  religion  of  all  mankind,  but  has  asserted  itself 
to  be  the  religion  of  all  mankind  in  and  by  the  religious 
idea.  .  .  .  Talmudism  itself  admits  that  he  even  who  no 
longer  observes  the  law,  but  who  utters  as  his  confession 


78  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

of  faith  the  words,  "  Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord  our  God 
the  Eternal  is  One,"  may  be  considered  still  to  be  a  Jew. 
Development  of  the  Religious  Idea,  p.  256. 

The  saying  of  the  Talmud,  "  The  pious 
among  all  nations  shall  have  a  place  in  the 
world  to  come,"  has  become  a  stock  quotation, 
and  has  been  of  the  utmost  value  to  modern 
Jewish  orthodoxy.  Thus  even  this  most  con- 
servative party  among  the  Jews  is  not  without 
a  certain  expansive  principle.  It  must  be  ad- 
mitted, however,  that  it  does  little  or  nothing 
to  make  that  principle  practically  efficacious, 
and  is  content  to  wait  for  the  advent  of  Mes- 
siah to  convert  the  nations  by  miracle  without 
any  trouble  to  Jews  to  strive  to  enlighten  them 
beforehand.  Considering  what  the  Jews  for 
ages  have  had  to  bear  from  those  who  vouch- 
safed to  try  to  convert  them,  we  may  pardon 
this  lack  of  zeal  for  proselytism  as  far  from 
unnatural;  yet  the  consequences  have  been  de- 
plorable. He  who  holds  a  precious  truth  con- 
cerning eternal  things,  and  fails  to  feel  it  to  be 
(as  Mrs.  Browning  says)  "  like  bread  at  sacra- 
ment," to  be  passed  on  to  those  beside  him, 
loses  his  right  to  it,  and  much  of  his  profit  in 
it.  It  is  "  treasure  hid  in  a  field."  The  atti- 
tude is  anti-social  and  misanthropic  of  a  people 
who  practically  say  to  their  neighbors:  "We 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  79 

possess  the  most  precious  of  all  truths,  of 
which  we  are  the  divinely  commissioned  guar- 
dians and  witnesses.  But  we  do  not  intend  to 
make  the  smallest  effort  to  share  that  truth 
with  you,  and  generations  of  you  may  go  to 
the  grave  without  it  for  all  we  care.  We  are 
passive  witnesses,  not  active  apostles.  By  and 
by,  the  Messiah  will  appear,  and  convert  all 
who  are  alive  in  his  time,  whether  they  will  or 
not;  but,  for  the  present,  Christendom  is  joined 
to  idols,  and  we  shall  let  it  alone."  The  faith 
which  speaks  thus  stands  self-condemned.  If 
a  creed  be  not  aggressive  and  proselytizing, 
like  Buddhism,  Islam,  and  Christianity,  it  con- 
fesses either  mistrust  of  itself  or  else  misan- 
thropic indifference  to  the  welfare  of  mankind. 
Thus  the  Orthodox  and  the  elder  Reformed 
Jews  have  tacitly  pronounced  their  own  sen- 
tence. 

Turn  we  now  from  these  to  the  new  Refor- 
mation. This  last  is  a  development  of  Juda- 
ism, truly  on  its  own  lines,  but  yet  extending 
far  beyond  anything  contemplated  by  the  elder 
bodies.  To  measure  it  aright,  we  must  cast 
back  a  glance  over  the  path  which  Judaism 
traversed  in  earlier  times,  and  note  how  com- 
pletely this  new  and  vast  stride  is  a  continu- 
ance of  that  march  towards  higher  and  wider 
religious  truth. 


80  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

From  the  earliest  conception  of  Jahveh  as 
the  Tribal  God, —  a  conception  which  even 
Kuenen  admits  to  be  native  to  the  race  of 
Israel,  and  tmtraceable  to  any  other  people,— 
from  this  conception,  which  plainly  assumed 
the  existence  of  other  and  rival  gods  of  neigh- 
boring nations,  it  was  an  enormous  step  in 
advance  to  pass  to  the  idea  of  One  only  Lord 
of  all  the  earth,  whose  House  should  be  a 
"  House  of  prayer  for  all  nations." 

Still  vaster  was  the  progress  from  anthropo- 
morphic and  morally  imperfect  ideas  of  the 
character  of  the  tribal  God  to  the  adoration  of 
Isaiah's  "  High  and  Holy  One,  who  inhabiteth 
eternity,"  who  dwells  in  the  high  and  holy 
place  with  the  pure  in  heart  and  the  contrite. 

Again,  there  was  made  a  bound  forward  by 
Judaism  when  the  earlier  simple  secularism  and 
disbelief  of,  or  indifference  to,  a  future  world 
vanished  before  the  belief  in  Immortality  which 
grew  up  in  spite  of  the  teachings  of  Antigonus 
and  Sadok,  and  (after  the  Dispersion)  never 
faded  out  again  altogether. 

And  finally,  with  the  development  of  the 
Prophetic  spirit,  Worship  assumed  more  its  true 
forms  of  praise,  confession  of  sin,  and  thanks- 
giving ;  and,  at  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  the  bloody 
sacrifices  (long  limited  to  the  sacred  enclosure) 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  8 1 

came  to   an    end   forever    amid  the    smoking 
ruins. 

These  were  truly  great  steps  of  progress 
made  by  Israel  of  old;  but  the  last  of  them 
left  the  nation  to  carry  into  its  sorrowful  exile 
an  intolerable  burden  of  ceremonialism  and 
dusty  superstitions,  whereof  the  Talmud  is 
now  the  lumber-room,  and  possessed  also  by 
an  unhappy  demon  of  anti-social  pride,  which 
forbade  it  to  extend  to  or  accept  from  other 
nations  the  right  hand  of  human  brotherhood. 
The  Jews  did  not  go  out  from  Jerusalem  as 
the  little  band  of  Christian  missionaries  had 
gone,  eager  to  scatter  their  new  wealth  of  truth 
among  the  nations,  and,  though  stoned  and 
crucified  by  those  whom  they  sought  to  bless, 
yet  ever  after  by  their  children's  children  to  be 
revered  and  canonized.  The  Jews  went  out  as 
misers  of  truth,  holding  their  full  bags  of  treas- 
ure hid  in  their  breasts.  Nor  in  the  ages  fol- 
lowing the  Dispersion,  while  Christianity  di- 
verged further  and  further  from  pure  Theism, 
and  through  Mariolatry  and  Hagiolatry  sank 
well-nigh  to  polytheism  and  idolatry,  do  we 
ever  once  hear  of  an  attempt  by  any  Jewish 
teacher,  even  by  such  a  man  as  Maimonides, 
to  call  back  the  wandering  nations  by  pro- 
claiming in  their  ears  the  "  schema  Israel "  — 


82  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

"  THE  LORD  YOUR  GOD  THE  ETERNAL  is  ONE." 
Before  the  expulsion  from  Palestine,  for  a  brief 
period,  Judaism  (as  one  of  its  bitterest  enemies 
has  remarked)  showed  promise  of  becoming  a 
proselytizing  creed,  "  when,  under  the  influence 
of  Greek  philosophy  and  other  liberalizing  in- 
fluences, it  was  tending  from  the  condition  of 
a  tribal  to  that  of  a  universal  creed.  But  Plato 
succumbed  to  the  Rabbins.  Judaism  fell  back 
for  eighteen  centuries  into  rigid  tribalism,  and, 
as  Lord  Beaconsfield  cynically  said  of  it,  has 
ever  since  '  no  more  sought  to  make  converts 
than  the  House  of  Lords.'"* 

At  last  the  long  pause  in  the  progress  of 
Judaism,  considered  as  a  religion,  seems  draw- 
ing to  an  end;  and  we  may  hail  its  present 
advance  as  the  continuance  of  that  noble  march 
which  the  Jewish  race  began  to  the  music  of 
Miriam's  timbrel. 

This  last  step  forward  of  Reformed  Judaism 
consists,  according  to  its  latest  interpreter,  in 
"  the  struggle  now  consciously  and  now  uncon- 
sciously maintained  to  emancipate  the  Jewish 
faith  from  every  vestige  of  tribalism,  and  to 
enshrine  its  wholly  catholic  doctrines  in  a 
wholly  catholic  form."  This  end  is  to  be 
pursued  through  the  "  DENATIONALIZATION  of 

*  Professor  Goldwin  Smith,  in  the  Nineteenth  Century. 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  83 

the  Jewish  religion,  by  setting  aside  all  the 
rules  and  ceremonies  which  do  not  possess  an 
essentially  religious  character  or  are  maintained 
merely  for  the  sake  of  the  national,  as  distinct 
from  the  religious,  unity." 

The  following  are  the  modes  in  which  this 
programme  may  be  followed  out :  — 

i.  Reformed  Judaism  abandons  the  Messi- 
anic hope.  It  neither  desires  nor  expects  the 
coming  of  Messiah,  and  the  resettlement  of 
the  Jews  in  Palestine  as  a  nation  it  regards  as 
retrogression  toward  tribalism.*  2.  It  rejects 
the  theory  of  the  verbal  inspiration  of  the  Old 
Testament,  nor  does  it  recognize  the  perfection 
and  immutability  of  the  law  contained  within 
the  Pentateuch.  3.  It  rejects  the  theory  of  a 
Divine  tradition  recorded  in  the  Mischna,  and 
does  not  admit  the  authority  of  the  Talmudic 
laws.  4.  It  puts  aside,  as  no  longer  binding, 
all  the  legal,  hygienic,  and  agrarian  ordinances 
of  the  Pentateuch,  together  with  the  laws  re- 
lating to  marriages  and  to  the  Levites.  5.  It 

*  It  will  be  noticed  that  nothing  can  be  further  apart  than  these 
ideas  of  a  Reformed  Judaism  from  those  put  forward  by  George 
Eliot  in  "  Daniel  Deronda."  Equally  remote  are  they  from  the 
crude  endeavor  to  return  to  a  supposed  primitive  Judaism  through 
the  "worship  of  the  letter"  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  was  hailed 
some  years  ago  with  premature  satisfaction  by  a  certain  school  of 
Protestant  Christians.  See  the  interesting  "  History  of  the  Karaite 
Jews,"  by  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Rule,  D.D.,  1870. 


84  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

cuts  down  the  feasts  and  fasts  to  the  Sabbath, 
the  Passover,  and  four  others.  6.  It  adopts 
the  vernacular  of  each  country  for  a  larger  or 
smaller  part  of  the  service  of  the  synagogue, 
instead  of  retaining  the  whole  in  Hebrew. 

Besides  these  six  great  changes,  there  are 
two  others  looming  in  the  distance.  Reformed 
Judaism  still  regards  the  rite  of  circumcision 
as  binding,  though  several  distinguished  re- 
formers (notably  Geiger)  have  recommended 
that  proselytes  should  not  be  required  to  adopt 
it.  Of  the  change  of  the  Sabbath  day  from 
Saturday  to  Sunday,  I  am  informed  that  the 
transference  of  the  holy  day  has  already  been 
made  by  one  synagogue  in  Berlin,  which  holds 
its  services  on  the  Sunday,  and  by  many 
independent  Jewish  men  of  business ;  and  that 
it  is  very  much  desired  in  some  other  quarters. 
The  difficulty  attendant  on  this  change  obvi- 
ously is:  that  it  would  prove  so  favorable  to 
the  interests  of  Jews  in  a  secular  sense  that, 
if  adopted,  the  charge  of  worldly  motives 
is  certain  to  be  brought  against  those  who 
advocate  it. 

These,  then,  in  brief,  are  the  negations  of 
Reformed  Judaism.  On  the  positive  side,  it 
reaffirms  those  dogmas  which  are  the  kernel 
of  Judaism, —  "the  Unity  of  God;  His  just 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  85 

judgment  of  the  world;  the  free  relation  of 
every  man  to  God ;  the  continual  progress  of 
humanity ;  the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  and 
the  Divine  election  of  Israel "  (understood  to 
signify  that  the  Jews,  under  the  will  of  God, 
possess  a  specific  religious  mission  not  yet 
entirely  fulfilled).  As  to  the  observances  of 
Reformed  Judaism,  the  framework  of  life  and 
habit  under  which  it  proposes  to  exist,  "  they 
will  remain  distinctively  Jewish,  and  must  not 
bear  the  mere  stamp  of  nineteenth  century 
religious  opinion."  The  Jewish  Reformer 
thus,  like  many  another  Radical,  is  an  aristo- 
crat at  heart,  and  shrinks  from  descending  to 
the  level  of  a  parvenue  faith.  In  my  humble 
judgment,  he  is  entirely  right  in  his  decision. 
So  long  as  he  places  the  interests  of  truth  and 
honesty  above  all,  he  cannot  do  better  than 
hold  fast  by  everything  which  reminds  himself 
and  the  world  of  his  pedigree  through  a  hun- 
dred generations  of  worshippers  of  Jehovah. 

The  extent  to  which  such  reformation  as 
that  now  sketched  prevails  at  this  hour  among 
Jews  is  difficult  to  ascertain.  The  movement 
has  been  going  on  for  some  time,  and  yet 
counts  but  a  moderate  number  of  adherents, 
chiefly,  as  I  have  said,  German  and  American 
Jews.  Nay,  what  is  most  unhopeful,  the 


86  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

disease  of  religious  indifference,  that  moral 
phylloxera  which  infests  the  choicest  spiritual 
vineyards,  is  working  its  evil  way  among  the 
broader-minded  Jews,  as  it  works  (we  know 
too  well)  among  the  broader-minded  Christians. 
To  unite  depth  of  conviction  with  width  of 
sympathy  has  ever  been  a  rare  achievement. 
"  Tout  comprendre  sera  tout  pardonner,"  may 
be  rendered,  in  intellectual  matters,  "  To  find 
truth  everywhere  is  to  contend  for  it  nowhere." 
There  is  good  room  to  hope,  however,  that 
if  some  fall  out  of  the  ranks,  the  Reformed 
party  will  yet  possess  enough  energy,  vigor, 
and  cohesion  to  make  its  influence  erelong 
extensively  felt. 

It  is  a  startling  prospect  which  has  been  thus 
opened  before  us.  If  anything  seemed  fixed  in 
the  endless  flux  of  nations  and  religions,  it  was 
the  half-petrified  religion  of  the  Jew.  That 
the  stern  figure  which  we  have  beheld  walking 
alone  through  the  long  procession  of  history 
should  come  at  last  and  take  a  place  beside  his 
brothers  is  hard  to  picture.  We  live  in  a  time 
when, 

"  Faiths  and  empires  gleam, 
Like  wrecks  of  a  dissolving  dream." 

Every  solid  body  is  threatened  with  disintegra- 
tion ;  and  the  new  powers  of  cohesion,  if  such 


PROGRESSIVE   JUDAISM  87 

there  be,  have  scarcely  come  into  play.  But, 
of  all  changes  fraught  with  momentous  conse- 
quences, none  could  well  be  more  important 
than  that  of  a  stripping  off  of  its  tribal  gaber- 
dine by  Judaism,  and  the  adoption  of  "  a  law 
fit  for  law  universal."  The  old  fable  is  real- 
ized. The  wind  and  hail  of  persecution  ulew 
and  pelted  the  Jew  for  a  thousand  years,  and 
he  only  drew  his  cloak  closer  around  him. 
The  sunshine  of  prosperity  and  sympathy  has 
shone  upon  him,  and,  lo !  his  mantle  is  already 
dropping  from  his  shoulders. 

For  the  present  we  can  only  treat  the  matter 
as  a  grand  project,  but  we  may  endeavor  to  esti- 
mate the  value  of  a  Reformation  of  J  udaism 
such  as  Luther  accomplished  for  Christianity. 
In  the  first  place,  it  is,  I  conceive,  the  sole 
chance  for  the  permanent  continuance  of  the 
Jewish  religion  that  it  should  undergo  some 
such  regeneration.  If  the  proposed  Reform 
perish  in  the  bud,  Orthodox  Judaism  will 
doubtless  survive  for  some  generations,  but, 
according  to  the  laws  which  govern  human 
institutions,  its  days  must  be  numbered*  In 
former  times,  when  every  nation  in  Europe 
held  aloof  from  its  neighbors  in  fear  and  jeal- 
ousy, it  was  possible  for  alien  tribes,  like  the 
Jews  and  gypsies,  to  move  among  all,  holding 


88  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

rigidly  to  their  own  tribal  alliances  and  ob- 
servances ;  hated  and  mistrusted,  indeed,  but 
scarcely  more  so  than  their  Christian  next-door 
neighbors.  But  now  that  Christian  nations 
are  all  blending  together  under  the  influence 
of  perpetual  intercourse,  and  their  differences 
of  belief,  governments,  costumes,  habits,  and 
ideas  are  effacing  themselves  year  by  year,  the 
presence  of  a  non-fusing,  non-intermarrying, 
separatist  race  —  a  race  brought  by  commerce 
into  perpetual  friction  with  all  the  rest  — 
becomes  an  intolerable  anomaly. 

For  once  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith  was  in  the 
right  in  this  controversy,  when  he  remarked 
that  "  the  least  sacred  of  all  races  would  be  that 
which  should  persistently  refuse  to  come  into 
the  allegiance  of  humanity." 

The  Jews  have  shown  themselves  the  stur- 
diest of  mankind,  but  the  influences  brought 
to  bear  on  them  now  are  wholly  different 
from  those  which  they  met  with  such  stub- 
born courage  of  old.  Political  ambition,  so 
long  utterly  closed  to  them,  but  to  which 
Lord  Beaconsfield's  career  must  evermore 
prove  a  spur ;  pleasure  and  self-indulgence,  to 
which  their  wealth  is  an  ever  ready  key;  the 
scepticism  and  materialism  of  the  time,  to  which 
their  acute  and  positive  minds  seem  to  render 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  89 

them  even  more  liable  than  their  contempo- 
raries,—  these  are  not  the  elements  out  of 
which  martyrs  and  confessors  are  made.  A  re- 
formed, enlightened,  world-wide  creed,  which  a 
cultivated  gentleman  may  frankly  avow  and 
defend  in  the  salons  of  London,  Paris,  Berlin,  or 
New  York,  and  in  the  progress  of  which  he  may 
feel  some  enthusiasm, — a  creed  which  will  make 
him  free  to  adopt  from  Christianity  all  that  he 
recognizes  in  it  of  spiritually  lofty  and  morally 
beautiful, —  such  a  creed  may  have  a  future 
before  it  of  which  no  end  need  be  foreseen. 
But  for  unreformed  Judaism  there  can  be 
nothing  in  store  but  the  gradual  dropping 
away  of  the  ablest,  the  most  cultured,  the 
wealthiest,  the  men  of  the  world  and  the  men 
of  the  study, —  the  Spinozas,  the  Heines,  the 
Disraelis  —  and  the  persistence  only  for  a  few 
generations  of  the  more  ignorant,  fanatical, 
obscure,  and  poor. 

Again,  besides  giving  to  Judaism  a  new  lease 
of  life,  the  Reform  projected  would  undoubtedly 
do  much  to  extinguish  that  passion  vijuden- 
hasse  which  is  the  disgrace  of  Eastern  Chris- 
tendom, and  the  source  of  such  manifold  woes 
to  both  races.  The  root  of  that  passion  is  the 
newly  awakened  sense  (to  which  I  have  just 
referred)  of  impatience  at  the  existence  of  a 


9O  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

nation  within  every  nation,  having  separate 
interests  of  its  own  and  a  solidarity  between 
its  members,  ramifying  into  every  trade, 
profession,  and  concern  of  civil  life.  Were 
this  solidarity  to  be  relinquished,  and  the 
mutual  secret  co-operation  of  Jews*  reduced 
to  such  natural  and  fitting  friendliness  as 
exists  between  Scotchmen  in  England,  and 
were  it  to  become  common  for  Jews  to  marry 
Christians  and  discuss  freely  with  Christians 
their  respective  views, —  were  this  to  happen, 
mutual  respect  and  sympathy  would  very 
quickly  supersede  mutual  prejudice  and  mis- 
trust. After  two  generations  of  such  Reformed 
Judaism,  the  memory  of  the  difference  of  race 
would,  I  am  persuaded,  be  reduced  to  that 
pleasant  interest  wherewith  we  trace  the 
ancestry  of  some  of  our  eminent  statesmen 
to  "  fine  old  Quaker  families,"  or  remark  that 

*As  an  example  of  this,  I  can  mention  the  following  fact.  All 
the  Jewish  journals  in  Germany  (amounting  to  nine  out  of  ten  of  all 
the  newspapers  in  the  country)  support  a  certain  cruel  practice.  And 
why  ?  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  religion,  nothing  to  do  with  finance, 
nothing  to  do  with  any  matter  wherein  Jews  have  a  different  interest 
from  other  people.  The  key  to  this  mystery  is  simply  that  seven  or 
eight  of  the  most  guilty  persons  are  Jews.  This  "  clandestine  manip- 
ulation of  the  press,"  and  tribe-union  for  purposes  disconnected  with 
tribal  interests,  constitutes  a  cabal,  and  necessarily  creates  antagonism 
and  disgust.  Nothing  of  this  kind  can  be  laid  at  the  door  of  English 
Jews,  and  it  is  much  to  be  wished  that  they  would  expostulate  with 
their  brethren  on  its  imbittering  effects  abroad. 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  9! 

some  of  our  most  brilliant  men  of  letters  have 
in  their  veins  the  marvellous  Huguenot  blood.* 
It  is  superfluous  to  add  that  the  Jewish 
people,  thus  thoroughly  adopted  into  the  com- 
ity of  European  nations,  and  Judaism  recog- 
nized as  the  great  and  enlightened  religion  of 
that  powerful  and  ubiquitous  race,  the  true 
mission  of  Judaism,  as  taught  by  Bible  and 
Talmud  —  that  of  holding  up  the  torch  of 
monotheistic  truth  to  the  world  —  would  begin 
its  practical  accomplishment.  The  Latin 
nations  in  particular,  to  whom  religion  has 
presented  itself  hitherto  in  the  guise  of  eccle- 
siasticism  and  hagiolatry,  and  who  are  fast 

*  I  cannot  but  think  that  too  much  has  been  made,  particularly 
under  the  influence  of  the  modern  mania  for  "heredity,"  of  the 
exceptional  character  of  the  Jewish  race.  Of  course,  the  Jews  are 
a  most  remarkable  people,  so  vigorous  physically  as  to  be  able  to 
colonize  either  India  or  Greenland,  and  after  a  thousand  years  of 
Ghetto  existence  to  remain  (to  the  confusion  of  all  sanitation- 
mongers)  the  healthiest  race  in  Europe.  On  the  mental  side,  their 
multifarious  gifts  and  their  indomitable  sturdiness  are  no  less  admi- 
rable. But  their  fidelity  to  their  race  and  religion  is  not  unmatched. 
Not  to  speak  of  the  miserable  Gypsies,  the  Parsees  offer  a  more 
singular  spectacle;  for  their  members  have  always  been  a  handful 
compared  to  the  Jews  (not  above  150,000  at  the  utmost),  and  during 
the  ten  ages  of  their  exile  they  have  exhibited  a  spirit  of  concession 
towards  the  customs  of  their  neighbors  which  has  left  the  actual 
dogmas  of  their  religion  the  sole  bond  of  their  national  integrity. 
They  worshipped  the  One  good  God  under  the  law  of  Zoroaster 
three,  perhaps  four,  millenniums  ago,  and  they  worship  Him  faithfully 
still,  though  a  mere  remnant  of  a  race,  dwelling  in  the  midst  of 
idolaters,  and  with  no  distinctive  badgelike  circumcision,  no  haughty 


92  PROGRESSIVE   JUDAISM 

verging  into  blank  materialism  as  the  sole 
alternative  they  know,  would  behold  •  at  last, 
with  inevitable  respect,  a  simple  and  noble 
worship,  at  once  historical  and  philosophic, 
without  priestly  claims,  and  utterly  at  war 
with  every  form  of  monasticism  and  super- 
stition. The  impression  on  these,  and  even 
on  the  Northern  nations,  of  such  a  spectacle 
could  not  be  otherwise  than  elevating,  and 
possibly,  in  the  Divine  order  of  the  world, 
might  be  the  means  whereby  the  tide  of  faith, 
so  long  ebbing  out  in  dismal  scepticism,  should 
flow  once  more  up  the  rejoicing  shores. 

Even  if  this  be  too  much  to  hope,  I  cannot 
doubt   that   many  Christian    Churches  would 

disdain  of  "  Gentile  "  nations,  no  hope  of  a  restoration  to  their  own 
land.  Their  priests  have  been  illiterate  and  despised,  not  erudite  and 
honored  rabbis.  Their  sacred  books  have  twice  become  obsolete  in 
language,  and  incomprehensible  both  to  clergy  and  laity.  Their 
Prophet  has  faded  into  an  abstraction.  But  their  faith  in  Ahura- 
Mazda,  the  "  Wise  Creator,"  the  "  Rich  in  Love,"  remains  as  clear 
to-day  among  them  as  when  it  first  rose  upon  the  Bactrian  plains  in 
the  morning  of  the  world.  The  virtues  of  truth,  chastity,  industry, 
and  beneficence  inculcated  by  the  Zend-Avesta,  and  attributed  by 
the  Greek  historians  to  their  ancestors  of  the  age  of  Cyrus,  are  still 
noticeable  among  them  in  marked  contrast  to  their  Hindu  neigh- 
bors ;  as  are  likewise  their  muscular  strength  and  hardy  frames. 
Even  as  regards  their  commercial  aptitudes,  the  Parsees  offer  a 
singular  parallel  to  the  Jews.  The  Times  remarked  some  years  ago 
that  out  of  the  150,000  Parsees  there  were  an  incredible  number  of 
very  wealthy  men,  and  six  were  actual  millionaires.  One  of  the  last, 
Sir  Jamsetjee  Jeejebhoy,  gave  away  in  his  lifetime  the  sum  of 
.£700,000  sterling  in  charities  to  men  of  every  religion. 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  93 

draw  valuable  lessons  from  the  presence 
among  them  of  a  truly  reformed  Judaism, 
Especially  in  these  days  of  irreverence,  of 
finikin  Ritualism  on  one  side  and  Salvation 
Army  rowdyism  on  the  other,  it  would  be  a 
measureless  advantage  to  be  summoned  to 
revert  in  thought  to  the  solemn  and  awe- 
inspired  tone  of  Hebrew  devotion  which  still 
breathes  in  the  services  of  the  synagogue.  It 
has  been  a  loss  to  Christians  as  well  as  to 
Jews  that  these  services  have  hitherto  been 
conducted  in  Hebrew.*  Had  the  synagogue 
services  in  London  been  conducted  in  the 
English  language,  I  believe  that  many  of  the 
popular  misapprehensions  concerning  Judaism 
would  never  have  existed,  while  the  impres- 
sion of  profound  reverence  which  the  prayers 
convey  would  have  reacted  advantageously 
on  Christian  worship,  too  liable  to  oscillate 
between  formalism  and  familiarity.! 

I  am  bound  to  add,  on  the  other  side,  that 
it  appears  to  me  there  are  some  very  great 

*The  congregations   use  Prayer-books  with  the  vernacular  in 
parallel  columns. 

I 1  refer  especially  to  the  magnificent  services  for  the  Day  of 
Atonement  as  used  in  the  Reformed  Synagogue.     There  are  also 
many  noble  prayers  hi  the  collection  of  Sabbath  and  other  services 
for  various  festivals.    The  whole  liturgy  is  majestic,  though  some- 
what deficient  as  regards  the  expression  of  spiritual  aspiration. 


94  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

advantages  on  the  side  of  Christianity  of  which 
it  behooves  reforming  Jews  to  take  account. 
These  are  not  matters  of  dogma,  but  of  senti- 
ment ;  and  not  only  may  they  be  appropriated 
by  Jews  without  departing  by  a  hair's  breadth 
from  their  own  religious  platform,  but  they 
may  every  one  be  sanctioned  (if  any  sanction 
be  needed  for  them)  by  citations  from  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  themselves.  The  great 
difference  between  Judaism  and  Christianity 
on  their  moral  and  spiritual  sides,  in  my 
humble  judgment,  lies  in  this :  that  the  piety 
and  charity,  scattered  like  grains  of  gold 
through  the  rock  of  Judaism,  were  by  Christ's 
burning  spirit  fused  together,  and  cast  into 
golden  coin  to  pass  from  hand  to  hand.  Jews 
have  continually  challenged  Christians  to  point 
to  a  single  precept  in  the  Gospel  which  has 
not  its  counterpart  in  the  Old  Testament. 
They  are  perhaps  in  the  right,  and  possibly 
no  such  isolated  precept  can  be  found  differ- 
entiating the  two  creeds ;  but,  both  by  that 
which  is  left  aside  and  by  that  which  it  chose 
out  and  emphasized,  Christianity  is,  practically, 
a  new  system  of  ethics  and  religion. 

To  these  three  things  in  Christianity  I  would 
direct  the  attention  of  Jewish  reformers:  — 

The  Christian  idea  of  love  to  God. 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  95 

The  Christian  idea  of  love  to  Man. 

The  Christian  sentiment  concerning  Immor- 
tality. 

For  the  first,  far  be  it  from  me  to  wrong  the 
martyr  race  by  a  doubt  that  thousands  of  Jews 
have  nobly  obeyed  the  First  Great  Command- 
ment of  the  Law  (given  in  Deuteronomy  vi.  4, 
as  well  as  repeated  by  Christ)  and  "loved  the 
Lord  their  God  with  all  their  heart  and  soul 
and  strength,"  even  to  the  willing  sacrifice 
of  their  lives  through  fidelity  to  Him.  The 
feelings  of  loyalty  entertained  by  a  Jew  in 
the  old  days  of  persecution  to  the  "  God  of 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob "  must  have  been 
often  a  master-passion  as  fervid  as  it  was 
deep-rooted.  But  alongside  of  this  hereditary 
loyalty  to  the  God  and  King  of  Israel  there 
might  well  grow  somewhat  of  that  tender  per- 
sonal piety  which  springs  from  the  Evangelical 
idea  of  God  as  holding  personal  relations  with 
each  devout  and  forgiven  soul. 

Of  the  two  theories  of  religion, —  that  which 
starts  with  the  idea  of  a  Tribe  or  Church,  and 
that  which  starts  with  the  unit  of  the  individual 
soul, —  Judaism  has  hitherto  held  the  former. 
It  has  been  essentially  a  corporate  religion; 
and  to  be  "cut  off  from  the  congregation," 
like  Spinoza,  has  been  deemed  tantamount  to 


96  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

spiritual   destruction.      It  is   surely  time   that 
Reformed  Judaism  should  now  adopt  the  far 
higher  theory  of  religious   individualism,  and 
teach   men  to  seek  those  sacred   private  and 
personal    relations   with    the    Lord    of   Spirits 
which,  when  once  enjoyed,  cause  the  notions 
of   any  mere   corporate   privileges   to   appear 
childish.      Had   the    deep    experiences   which 
belong  to  such  personal  piety  been  often  felt 
by  modern    Jews    (as   they  certainly  were  by 
many  of  the  old  Psalmists),  it  could  not  have 
happened  that  modern  Jewish  literature  should 
have   been   so   barren    as  it   is  of   devotional 
works  and  of  spiritual  poetry.     To  a  serious 
reverential   spirit  (a  sentiment   far  above  the 
level   of   that  of   the  majority  of    Christians), 
Jews  too  rarely  join  those  more  ardent  relig- 
ious affections  and  aspirations  which  it  is  the 
glory  of  Christianity  to  inspire  in   the  hearts 
of  her  saints.     Had  they  known  these  feelings 
vividly  and  often,  we  must  have  had  a  Jewish 
Thomas  a  Kempis,  a  Jewish   Saint    Theresa, 
a  Jewish  Tauler,  Fenelon,  Taylor,  Wesley.     It 
will    not   suffice  to  say  in  answer   that  Jews 
did  not  need  such  treatises  of  devotion   and 
such   hymns   of   ecstatic  piety,  having  always 
possessed  the    noblest  of   the  world   in    their 
own  Scriptures.     Feelings  which  really  rise  to 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  97 

the  flood  do  not   keep  in  the  river-bed  for  a 
thousand  years. 

Again,  the  Christian  idea  of  Love  to  Man 
possesses  an  element  of  tenderness  not  per- 
ceptible in  Jewish  philanthropy.  Jews  are 
splendidly  charitable  not  alone  to  their  own 
poor,  but  also  to  Christians.  Their  manage- 
ment of  their  public  and  private  charities  has 
long  been  recognized  as  wiser  and  more  liberal 
than  that  of  Christians  at  home  or  abroad. 
They  are  faithful  and  affectionate  husbands 
and  wives ;  peculiarly  tender  parents ;  pious 
children  ;  kindly  neighbors.  The  cruel  wrongs 
of  eighteen  centuries  have  neither  brutalized 
nor  imbittered  them.  Well  would  it  be  if 
whole  classes  of  drunken,  wife-beating  English- 
men would  take  example  in  these  respects  from 
them!  But  of  certain  claims  beyond  these, 
claims  always  recognized  by  Christian  teachers, 
and  not  seldom  practically  fulfilled  by  Christian 
men  and  women, —  the  claims  of  the  erring  to 
be  forgiven,  of  the  fallen  to  be  lifted  out  of  the 
mire, —  Jews  have  hitherto  taken  little  account. 
The  parable  of  the  Lost  Sheep  is  emphati- 
cally Christian;  and  among  Christians  only,  till 
quite  recently,  have  there  been  active  agencies 
at  work  to  seek  and  save  ruined  women,  drunk- 
ards, criminals,  the  "  perishing  and  dangerous 


98  PROGRESSIVE   JUDAISM 

classes."  *  Mary  Magdalene  did  well  to  weep 
over  the  feet  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  Christ 
who  brought  into  the  world  compassion  for 
her  and  for  those  like  her.  And  for  the  for- 
giveness of  enemies,  also,  the  Christian  spirit, 
if  not  absolutely  unique,  is  yet  supreme.  The 
very  core  of  the  Christian  idea  fitly  found 
its  expression  on  the  Cross,  "  Father,  forgive 
them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do."  That 
divinest  kind  of  charity,  which  renounces  all 
contests  for  rights,  and  asks  not  what  it  is 
bound  to  do,  but  what  it  may  be  permitted  to 
do,  to  bless  and  serve  a  child  of  God, —  that 
charity  may,  I  think,  justly  be  historically 
named  Christian.  Of  course,  every  pure  The- 
ism is  called  on  to  teach  it  likewise. 

*So  rapidly  moves  the  world  that,  since  this  Essay  was  first 
published,  a  whole  systematic  work  of  charity  of  this  specially  Chris- 
tian character  has  been  established  by  benevolent  Jewish  ladies  in 
London.  I  have  before  me  the  "  Report  of  the  Jewish  Ladies'  Asso- 
ciation for  Prevention  and  Rescue  Work"  for  1886-87,  printed  for 
private  circulation.  The  president  of  the  association  is  Lady  Roth- 
schild ;  the  honorable  secretaries,  Mrs.  Cyril  Flower  and  Mrs.  J.  L. 
Jacobs.  Nothing  can  seem  more  wisely  kind  and  merciful  than  the 
whole  scheme  as  here  detailed.  We  are  told  that  the  poor  Jewish 
girls  reclaimed  from  a  life  of  vice  (into  which  only  of  late  years 
have  many  been  known  to  fall)  "  are  taught  not  only  to  follow  the 
observances  of  their  faith,  but  also  to  lead  pure  and  useful  lives; 
and  no  pains  will  be  spared  to  make  them  better  women  as  well  as 
capable  earners  of  their  own  livelihood.  .  .  .  The  committee  feel  con- 
vinced they  will  not  be  allowed  to  fail  in  their  strenuous  endeavor 
to  bring  back  those  who  are,  as  it  were,  sunk  in  moral  death,  to  a 
new  life." 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  99 

With  regard  to  women,  the  attitude  of  Juda- 
ism is  peculiar.  It  has  always  recognized  some 
"  Rights  of  Women,"  and  has  never  fallen  into 
the  absurdity  of  cherishing  mental  or  physical 
weakness  in  them  as  honorable  or  attractive. 
As  Mrs.  Cyril  Flower  (then  Miss  Constance 
de  Rothschild)  showed  in  an  interesting  arti- 
cle published  some  years  ago,  the  "  Hebrew 
Woman,"  so  magnificently  described  in  the 
last  chapter  of  Proverbs,  has  always  been  the 
Jewish  ideal :  "  Strength  and  honor  are  her 
clothing.  She  openeth  her  mouth  with  wis- 
dom." No  jealousy,  but,  on  the  contrary,  joyful 
recognition,  awaited  in  each  age  the  vigorous 
actions  of  Miriam  and  Deborah,  of  Judith  and 
Esther,  and  of  the  mother  of  the  seven  martyrs 
in  the  Book  of  Maccabees.  Jewish  marriages 
(till  quite  recently  formed  always  on  the  East- 
ern rather  than  on  the  Western  system)  are 
proverbially  faithful  and  affectionate ;  and  the 
resolution  of  Jews  never  to  permit  their  wives 
to  undertake  labor  outside  their  homes  (such 
as  factory  work  and  the  like)  has  undoubtedly 
vastly  contributed  to  the  health  and  welfare 
of  the  nation.  Yet,  notwithstanding  all  this, 
something  appears  to  be  lacking  in  Jewish 
feeling  concerning  women.  Too  much  of 
Oriental  materialism  still  lingers.  Too  little 


IOO  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

of  Occidental  chivalry  and  romance  has  yet 
arisen.  In  this  respect,  strange  to  say,  the 
East  is  prose,  the  West  poetry.  The  relations 
of  men  and  women,  above  all  of  husband  and 
wife,  cannot  be  ranked  as  perfect  till  some 
halo  of  tender  reverence  be  added  to  sturdy 
good  will  and  fidelity.* 

And,  beyond  their  human  brethren  and 
sisters,  Christians  have  found  (it  is  one  of 
those  late  developments  of  the  fertile  Chris- 
tian idea  of  which  I  have  spoken)  that  the 
humbler  races  of  living  creatures  have  also 
claims  upon  us, —  moral  claims  founded  on  the 
broad  basis  of  the  right  of  simple  sentiency 
to  be  spared  needless  pain;  religious  claims 
founded  on  the  touching  relation  which  we, 
the  often  forgiven  children  of  God,  bear  to 
"the  unoffending  creatures  which  he  loves." 
This  tender  development  of  Christianity,  and 
the  discovery  consequent  on  it,  that  "  he  pray- 
eth  well  who  loveth  well  both  man  and  bird 
and  beast,"  is  assuredly  worthy  of  the  regard 
of  those  Reformers  who  would  make  Judaism 
a  universal  religion.  Semitic  literature  has 
hitherto  betrayed  a  hardness  and  poverty  on 
this  side  which  it  is  needful  should  now  be 

*See    this    affectingly    brought    out    in    that    charming  book, 
"The  Jews  of  Barnow." 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  IOI 

remedied,  if   Judaism  is   to    ride  on   the  full 
tide  of  Aryan  sympathies. 

And,  lastly,  the  Christian  sentiment  concern- 
ing Immortality  deserves  special  attention  from 
Reforming  Jews.  The  adoption  of  the  dogma 
of  a  Future  Life  has  scarcely  even  yet,  after 
some  fifty  generations,  imprinted  on  the  Jewish 
mind  the  full  consciousness  of 

"  That  great  world  of  light  which  lies 
Behind  all  human  destinies." 

Jews  have,  it  would  appear,  essentially  the 
esprit  positif.  They  are  content  to  let  the 
impenetrable  veil  hang  between  their  eyes  and 
the  future  world, —  that  veil  which  the  Aryan 
soul  strives  impatiently,  age  after  age,  to  tear 
away,  or  on  which  it  throws  a  thousand 
phantasms  from  the  magic-lanthorn  of  fancy. 
Millions  of  Christians  have  lived  with  their 
"  treasures "  truly  placed  in  that  world  where 
moth  and  rust  do  not  corrupt,  nor  thieves 
break  through  and  steal.  Especially  have  the 
bereaved  among  us  dwelt  on  earth  with  their 
hearts  already  in  heaven  where  their  beloved 
ones  await  them.  To  too  great  an  extent,  no 
doubt,  has  this  "other-worldliness"  been  carried, 
especially  among  ascetics ;  but,  on  the  whole, 
the  firm  anchorage  of  Christian  souls  beyond 


IO2  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

the  tomb  has  been  the  source  of  infinite 
comfort  and  infinite  elevation.  Of  this  sort 
of  projection  of  the  spirit  into  the  darkness, 
this  rocket-throwing  of  ropes  of  faith  over  the 
deeps  of  destruction,  whereby  the  mourner's 
shipwrecked  soul  is  saved  and  reinstated,  the 
Jewish  consciousness  seems  yet  scarcely  cog- 
nizant. Perhaps  these  days  of  pessimism  and 
mental  fog  are  not  those  wherein  any  one  is 
likely  to  find  his  faith  in  immortality  quickened. 
As  Dr.  Johnson  complained  that  he  was  "  in- 
jured "  by  every  man  who  did  not  believe  all 
that  he  believed,  so  each  of  us  finds  his  hope 
of  another  life  chilled  by  the  doubts  which, 
like  icebergs,  float  in  the  sea  of  thought  we  are 
traversing.  But,  for  those  Jews  who  thoroughly 
accept  the  dogma  of  immortality,  it  would  surely 
be  both  a  happiness  and  a  source  of  moral  ele- 
vation to  give  to  such  a  stupendous  fact  its 
place  in  the  perspective  of  existence.  There 
is  infinite  difference  between  the  molelike 
vision  which  sees  nothing  beyond  the  grass- 
roots and  the  worms  of  earth,  though  dimly 
aware  of  a  world  of  sunlight  above,  and  the 
eagle  glance  which  can  measure  alike  things 
near  and  afar;  between  the  man  who  counts 
his  beloved  dead  as  lost  to  him  because  he 
beholds  and  hears  and  touches  them  no  more, 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  1 03 

and  the  man  who  can  say  calmly  amid   his 
sorrow, — 

"  Take  them,  thou  great  Eternity ! 

Our  little  life  is  but  a  gust, 
Which  bends  the  branches  of  thy  tree, 
And  trails  its  blossoms  in  the  dust." 

Turning  now  from  the  results  on  Judaism 
itself  and  on  Christianity  at  large  of  a  great 
Jewish  Reformation,  we  may  indulge  in  some 
reflections  on  the  possible  bearings  of  such  an 
event  on  that  not  inconsiderable  number  of 
persons  who,  all  over  Europe,  are  hanging 
loosely  upon  or  dropping  silently  away  from 
the  Christian  Churches.  I  am  not  speaking 
of  those  who  become  Atheists  or  Agnostics 
and  renounce  all  interest  in  religion,  but  of 
those  who,  like  Robert  Elsmere,  pass  into 
phases  of  belief  which  may  be  broadly  classed 
under  the  head  of  Theism.  These  persons 
believe  still  in  God  and  in  the  life  to  come, 
and  hold  tenaciously  by  the  moral  and  spiritual 
part  of  Christianity,  perhaps  sometimes  feeling 
its  beauty  and  truth  more  vividly  than  some 
orthodox  Christians  who  deem  the  startling, 
miraculous,  and  "  apocalyptic  "  part  to  consti- 
tute the  essence  of  their  faith.  But  this 
"apocalyptic  part,"  and  all  which  Dr.  Mar- 
tineau  has  called  the  "  Messianic  mythology," 


IO4  PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

they  have  abandoned.  Of  the  number  of  these 
persons,  it  is  hard  to  form  an  estimate.  Some 
believe  that  the  Churches  are  all  honeycombed 
by  them,  and  that  a  panic  would  follow  could 
a  census  of  England  be  taken  in  a  Palace  of 
Truth.  Not  a  few  in  the  beginning  and 
middle  of  this  century  quitted  their  old  folds, 
and  under  the  names  of  "  Unitarians,"'  "  Free 
Christians,"  and  "  Theists "  have  thenceforth 
stood  confessedly  apart.*  But  of  late  years 
the  disposition  to  make  any  external  schism 
has  apparently  died  away.  The  instinct,  once 
universal,  to  build  a  new  nest  for  each  brood 
of  faith  seems  perishing  among  us.  The 
Church-forming  spirit,  so  vigorous  of  old  in 
Christianity  and  in  Buddhism,  is  visibly  fail- 
ing, and  making  way  for  new  phases  of 
development,  of  which  the  Salvation  Army 

*A  clever  book,  exhibiting  great  acquaintance  with  current 
phases  of  opinion,  appeared  a  few  years  ago,  offering  by  its  title 
some  promise  of  dealing  with  the  case  of  the  Christian  Theists  of 
whom  I  am  speaking.  The  author  proposes  to  discuss  "  Natural 
Religion,"  but  he  shortly  proceeds  to  describe  a  great  many  things 
which,  in  the  common  language  of  mankind,  are  not  religious  at  all, — 
scientific  ardor,  artistic  taste,  or  mere  recognition  of  the  physical 
order  of  the  universe, —  and  to  urge  that  these,  or  nothing,  must  con- 
stitute the  religion  of  the  future.  The  Israelites  who  had  gazed  up 
in  awe  and  wonder  at  the  rolling  clouds  on  Sinai,  from  whence  came 
the  thunders  and  voices,  and  the  stern  and  holy  Law,  and  were 
immediately  afterwards  called  on  to  worship  a  miserable  little  image 
of  a  calf,  and  told,  "These  be  Thy  Gods,  O  Israel!"  might,  one 
would  think,  have  felt  the  same  sense  of  bathos  which  we  experience 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM  105 

may  possibly  afford  us  a  sample.  Among 
cultivated  people  subtle  discrimination  of  dif- 
ferences and  fastidiousness  as  regards  ques- 
tions of  taste  are  indefinitely  stronger  than 
that  desire  for  a  common  worship  which,  in 
the  breasts  of  our  forefathers,  who  "  rolled  the 
psalm  to  wintry  skies,"  and  dared  death  merely 
to  pray  together,  must  have  mounted  to  a  pas- 
sion. Englishmen  generally  still  cling  to  public 
worship,  but  it  is  chiefly  where  an  ancient  lit- 
urgy supplies  by  old  and  holy  words  a  dreamy 
music  of  devotion,  into  which  each  feels  at 
liberty  to  weave  his  own  thoughts.  Wherever 
the  demand  is  made  for  prayers  which  shall 
definitely  express  the  faith  and  aspirations 
of  the  modern-minded  worshipper,  there  the 
subtleties  and  the  fastidiousness  come  into 
play,  and,  instead  of  being  drawn  together, 
men  sorrowfully  discover  that  they  are  made 

when  we  are  solemnly  assured  that  these  sciences  and  arts  are 
henceforth  our  "  Religion. "  A  drowning  man  proverbially  catches 
at  straws,  and  people  who  feel  themselves  sinking  in  the  ocean  of 
Atheism  seize  on  every  spar  which  comes  under  their  hands,  and  cry, 
"We  may  float  yet  awhile  by  this."  No  one  can  blame  them  for 
trying  to  do  so;  but  it  is  rather  hard  to  expect  all  the  world  to 
recognize  as  an  ironclad  the  hencoop  on  which  they  sit  astride. 

Among  the  "Natural  Religions,"  as  he  is  pleased  to  call  them, 
of  which  he  has  brought  us  intelligence  (some  of  which  are  not 
natural,  and  none  of  which  are  properly  Religions),  the  author  of  this 
book  has  disdained  to  mention  that  ancient  but  ever  new  form  of 
opinion  which  in  former  days  went  by  the  name  of  Natural  Religion. 
The  words  were  not  happily  selected,  and  belong  indeed  to  an 


IO6  PROGRESSIVE   JUDAISM 

conscious  by  common  worship  of  a  hundred 
discrepancies  of  opinion,  a  thousand  disharmo- 
nies of  taste  and  feeling.  In  all  things,  we 
men  and  women  of  the  modern  Athens  are 
not  "too  superstitious,"  but  too  critical;  and 
in  religion,  which  necessarily  touches  us  most 
vitally,  our  critical  spirit  threatens  to  paralyze 
us  with  shyness.  The  typical  English  gentle- 
man and  lady  of  to-day  are  at  the  opposite  pole 
of  sentiment  in  this  respect  from  the  Arab 
who  kneels  on  his  carpet  on  the  crowded  deck 
for  his  evening  orison,  or  from  the  Italian  con- 
tadina  who  tells  her  beads  before  the  way- 
side Madonna.  Doubtless,  here  is  one  reason 
among  many  why  such  multitudes  remain  with- 
out any  definite  place  in  the  religions  of  the 
land.  They  hang  languidly  about  the  old  hive, 
feebly  humming  now  and  then,  but  feeling  no 
impulse  to  swarm,  and  finding  no  queen-spirit 

archaic  theological  terminology.  But  they  were  understood  by  every- 
body to  mean,  not  the  recognition  of  the  virtues  of  physical  science, 
nor  admiration  of  fine  scenery,  nor  enthusiasm  for  art,  nor  recogni- 
tion of  natural  laws ;  for  all  these  things  had  names  of  their  own. 
But  it  was  understood  to  mean  the  recognition  and  worship  of  a 
super-mundane,  intelligent,  and  righteous  Person, —  in  other  words, 
of  GOD.  It  contemplated  God  "mainly  above  Nature,"  not,  as  the 
author  of  this  book  says  must  henceforward  be  done,  "  mainly  in 
Nature"  ("Natural  Religion,"  p.  160).  For  admirable  pictures,  how- 
ever, of  the  modern  Artist,  who  would  rather  have  painted  a  good 
picture  than  have  done  his  duty,  and  of  the  modern  Man  of  Science 
who,  "  consumed  by  the  passion  of  research,"  finds  "  right  and  wrong 
become  meaningless  words,"  see  p.  120. 


PROGRESSIVE  JUDAISM  107 

to  lead  them  to  another  home  where  they  might 
build  their  proper  cells  and  make  their  own 
honey. 

But,  whether  embodied  in  any  religious  sect 
or  Church,  or  hanging  loosely  upon  one,  the 
persons  of  whom  we  have  been  speaking,  as 
believers  in  God  and  in  the  spiritual,  but  not 
the  apocalyptic  side  of  Christianity, —  Chris- 
tian Theists,  as  we  may  best  call  them, —  are 
of  course  nearer  in  a  theological  point  of  view 
than  any  others  to  those  Reformed  Jews  whom 
we  may  call  Jewish  Theists.  The  intellectual 
creeds  of  each,  in  fact,  might,  without  much 
concession  on  either  side,  be  reduced  to  iden- 
tical formulas.  Now,  Christian  Theists  have 
hitherto  wanted  a  rallying  point,  and  have 
been  taunted  with  the  lack  of  any  historic 
basis  for  their  religion.  Why  (it  will  be  asked 
by  many)  should  not  this  Reformed  Judaism 
afford  such  a  rallying  point,  and  the  old  rocky 
foundations  laid  by  Moses  support  a  common 
temple  of  Christian  and  Jewish  Theism  ? 

It  may  prove  that  such  a  consummation  may 
be  among  the  happy  reunitings  and  reconstruc- 
tions of  the  far  future.  But  for  the  present 
hour,  and  for  the  reasons  I  have  given  in  the 
beginning  of  this  paper,  I  do  not  believe  it 
can  be  near  at  hand.  I  am  also  quite  sure 


I08  PROGRESSIVE   JUDAISM 

that  it  would  be  the  extreme  of  unwisdom  to 
hamper  and  disturb  the  progress  of  Reformed 
Judaism  along  its  own  lines  by  any  hasty 
efforts  at  amalgamation  with  outsiders,  who 
would  bring  with  them  another  order  of  relig- 
ious habits  and  endless  divergencies  of  opinion. 
Let  Reformed  Judaism  relight  the  old  golden 
candlestick,  and  set  it  aloft,  and  it  will  give 
light  unto  all  which  are  in  the  house, —  not 
only  the  House  of  Israel,  but  in  the  House 
of  Humanity.  A  glorious  future  may  in  God's 
Providence  await  such  purified,  emancipated 
Judaism.  It  is  true,  it  may  not  exhibit  the 
special  form  of  religion  which  one  party  or 
another  among  us  altogether  desires  to  see  ex- 
extended  in  the  world.  Some  radical  reformers 
who  sympathize  in  its  general  scope  would 
wish  to  find  it  stripping  off  altogether  its  Jew- 
ish character,  and  torn  up  from  the  root  of 
Mosaism.  Many  more  orthodox  Christians 
will  undervalue  it  because  it  shows  no  indica- 
tion of  a  tendency  to  adopt  from  Christianity 
such  doctrines  as  the  Trinity,  the  Incarnation, 
or  the  Atonement,  even  while,  on  the  spirit- 
ual side,  it  is  imbued  with  the  essential  ideas 
of  him  whom  it  will  doubtless  recognize  as 
the  great  Jewish  Rabbi  and  Prophet,  Jesus  of 
Nazareth.  But  it  is  not  for  us  to  seek  to 


PROGRESSIVE    JUDAISM 

modify,  scarcely  even  to  criticise,  such  a  move- 
ment as  this.  A  respectful  interest  and  a 
hopeful  sympathy  seem  to  me  the  only  sen- 
timents wherewith  Christians  and  Christian 
Theists  should  stand  aside  and  watch  this  last 
march  forward  of  that  wondrous  patriarchal 
faith,  whereof  Christianity  itself  is  the  first- 
born son,  and  Islam  the  younger ;  and  which 
now  in  the  end  of  the  ages  prepares  to  cross 
a  new  Jordan,  and  take  possession  of  a  new 
Holy  Land. 

***  NOTE. — It  is  proper  to  mention,  in  republishing  this  essay  at 
the  desire  of  Jewish  friends,  that  it  was  received  on  its  first  appear- 
ance with  the  utmost  possible  disfavor  by  the  Jewish  press. 


ESSAY  IV. 


THOUGHTS  ABOUT  THINKING. 


THOUGHTS  ABOUT  THINKING. 


ENDLESS  books  have  been  written  about  the 
Laws  of  Thought,  the  Nature  of  Thought,  and 
the  Validity  of  Thought.  Physiologists  and 
metaphysicians  have  vied  with  one  another  to 
tell  us  in  twenty  different  ways  how  we  think 
and  why  we  think  and  what  good  our  thinking 
may  be  supposed  to  be  as  affording  us  any  real 
acquaintance  with  things  in  general  outside  our 
thinking-machine.  One  school  of  philosophers 
tells  us  that  Thought  is  a  secretion  of  the  brain 
(i.e.,  that  Thought  is  a  form  of  Matter),  and 
another  that  it  is  purely  immaterial,  and  the 
only  reality  in  the  universe, —  i.e.,  that  Matter 
is  a  form  of  Thought.  The  meekest  of  men 
"presume  to  think"  this,  that,  and  the  other; 
and  the  proudest  distinction  of  the  modern 
sage  is  to  be  a  "Thinker,"  especially  a  "free" 
one.  But  with  all  this  much  ado  about 
Thought,  it  has  not  occurred  to  any  one,  so 
far  as  I  am  aware,  to  attempt  a  fair  review  of 


114  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

what  any  one  of  us  thinks  in  the  course  of 
the  twenty-four  hours;  what  are  the  number 
of  separable  thoughts  which,  on  an  average, 
pass  through  a  human  brain  in  a  day;  and 
what  may  be  their  nature  and  proportions  in 
the  shape  of  Recollections,  Reflections,  Hopes, 
Contrivances,  Fancies,  and  Reasonings.  We 
are  all  aware  that  when  we  are  awake  a 
perpetual  stream  of  thoughts  goes  on  in 
"what  we  are  pleased  to  call  our  minds," 
sometimes  slow  and  sluggish,  as  the  water  in 
a  ditch ;  sometimes  bright,  rapid,  and  sparkling, 
like  a  mountain  brook;  and  now  and  then 
making  some  sudden,  happy  dash,  cataract-wise, 
over  an  obstacle.  We  are  also  accustomed  to 
speak  as  if  the  sum  and  substance  of  all  this 
thinking  were  very  respectable,  as  might  be- 
come "beings  endowed  with  the  lofty  faculty 
of  thought " ;  and  we  always  tacitly  assume 
that  our  thoughts  have  logical  beginnings, 
middles,  and  endings  —  commence  with  prob- 
lems and  terminate  in  solutions  —  or  that  we 
evolve  out  of  our  consciousness  ingenious 
schemes  of  action  or  elaborate  pictures  of 
Hope  or  Memory.  If  our  books  of  mental 
philosophy  ever  obtain  a  place  in  the  Circu- 
lating Libraries  of  another  planet,  the  "general 
reader"  of  that  distant  world  will  inevitably 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING  115 

suppose  that  on  our  little  Tellus  dwell  a  thou- 
sand millions  of  men,  women,  and  children,  who 
spend  their  existence  as  the  interlocutors  in 
Plato's  Dialogues  passed  their  hours  under  the 
grip  of  the  dread  Socratic  elenchus,  arguing, 
sifting,  balancing,  recollecting,  hard  at  work  as 
if  under  the  ferule  of  a  schoolmaster. 

The  real  truth  about  the  matter  seems  to 
be  that,  instead  of  taking  this  kind  of  mental 
exercise  all  day  long,  and  every  day,  there  are 
very  few  of  us  who  ever  do  anything  of  the 
kind  for  more  than  a  few  minutes  at  a  time ; 
and  that  the  great  bulk  of  our  thoughts  pro- 
ceed in  quite  a  different  way,  and  are  occupied 
by  altogether  less  exalted  matters  than  our 
vanity  has  induced  us  to  imagine.  The 
normal  mental  locomotion  of  even  well-edu- 
cated men  and  women,  save  under  the  spur 
of  exceptional  stimulus,  is  neither  the  flight 
of  an  eagle  in  the  sky  nor  the  trot  of  a  horse 
upon  the  road,  but  may  better  be  compared 
to  the  lounge  of  a  truant  school-boy  in  a  shady 
lane,  now  dawdling  pensively,  now  taking  a 
hop-skip-and-jump,  now  stopping  to  pick  black- 
berries,  and  now  turning  to  right  or  left  to 
catch  a  butterfly,  climb  a  tree,  or  make  dick- 
duck-and-drake  on  a  pond ;  going  nowhere  in 
particular,  and  only  once  in  a  mile  or  so  pro- 


Il6  THOUGHTS    ABOUT   THINKING 

ceeding  six  steps  in  succession  in  an  orderly 
and  philosophical  manner. 

It  is  far  beyond  my  ambition  to  attempt  to 
supply  this  large  lacune  in  mental  science,  and 
to  set  forth  the  truth  of  the  matter  about  the 
actual  Thoughts  which  practically,  not  theo- 
retically, are  wont  to  pass  through  human 
brains.  Some  few  observations  on  the  subject, 
however,  may  perhaps  be  found  entertaining, 
and  ought  certainly  to  serve  to  mitigate  our 
self-exaltation  on  account  of  our  grand  mental 
endowments,  by  showing  how  rarely  and  under 
what  curious  variety  of  pressure  we  employ 
them. 

The  first  and  familiar  remark  is  that  every 
kind  of  thought  is  liable  to  be  colored  and 
modified  in  all  manner  of  ways  by  our  physi- 
cal conditions  and  surroundings.  We  are  not 
steam  thinking-machines,  working  evenly  at 
all  times  at  the  same  rate,  and  turning  out  the 
same  sort  and  quantity  of  work  in  the  same 
given  period,  but  rather  more  like  windmills, 
subject  to  every  breeze,  and  whirling  our  sails 
at  one  time  with  great  impetus  and  velocity, 
and  at  another  standing  still,  becalmed  and 
ineffective.  Sometimes  it  is  our  outer  condi- 
tions which  affect  us,  sometimes  it  is  our  own 
inner  wheels  which  are  clogged  and  refuse  to 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING  I  I  7 

rotate ;  but,  from  whatever  cause  it  arises,  the 
modification  of  our  thoughts  is  often  so  great 
as  to  make  us  arrive  at  diametrically  opposite 
conclusions  on  the  same  subject  and  with  the 
same  data  of  thought,  within  an  incredibly 
brief  interval  of  time.  Some  years  ago,  the 
President  of  the  British  Association  frankly 
answered  objections  to  the  consistency  of  his 
inaugural  address  by  referring  to  the  different 
aspects  of  the  ultimate  problems  of  theology 
in  different  "  moods "  of  mind.  When  men 
of  such  eminence  confess  to  "moods,"  lesser 
mortals  may  avow  their  own  mental  oscilla- 
tions without  painful  humiliation,  and  even 
put  forward  some  claim  to  consistency  if  the 
vibrating  needle  of  their  convictions  do  not 
swing  quite  round  the  whole  compass,  and 
point  at  two  o'clock  to  the  existence  of  a 
Deity  and  a  Life  to  come,  and  at  six  to  a 
nebula  for  the  origin,  and  a  "streak  of  morning 
cloud "  for  the  consummation  of  things.  Pos- 
sibly, also,  the  unscientific  mind  may  claim 
some  praise  on  the  score  of  modesty  if  it  delay 
for  the  moment  to  instruct  mankind  in  either 
its  two  o'clock  or  its  six  o'clock  creed,  and 
wait  till  it  has  settled  down  for  some  few 
hours,  weeks,  or  months,  to  any  one  definite 
opinion. 


Il8  THOUGHTS    ABOUT   THINKING 

Not  to  dwell  for  the  present  on  these  serious 
topics,  it  is    only  necessary  to  carry  with    us 
through  our  future  investigations   that   every 
man's  thoughts  are  continually  fluctuating  and 
vibrating,   from    inward    as   well    as    outward 
causes.     Let  us  glance  for  a  moment  at  some 
of  these.     First,  there  are  the  well-known  con- 
ditions of   health  and  high  animal   spirits,  in 
which  every  thought  is  rose-colored ;  and  cor- 
responding conditions,  of   disease  and  depres- 
sion, in  which  everything  we  think  of  seems  to 
pass,  like  a  great  bruise,  through  yellow,  green, 
blue,  and  purple  to  black.     A  liver  complaint 
causes  the  universe  to  be  enshrouded  in  gray; 
and  the  gout  covers  it  with  an  inky  pall,  and 
makes    us  think  our  best  friends  little  better 
than    fiends    in    disguise.      Further,    a   whole 
treatise  would  be  needed  to  expound  how  our 
thoughts  are  further  distempered  by  food,  bev- 
erages of  various  kinds,  and  narcotics  of  great 
variety.     When  our  meals  have  been  too  long 
postponed,  it   would   appear   as    if    that    Evil 
Personage  who  proverbially  finds  mischief  for 
idle  hands  to  do  were  similarly  engaged  with 
an  idle  digestive  apparatus,  and  the  result  is 
that,  if  there  be  the  smallest  and  most  remote 
cloud  to  be  seen  in  the  whole  horizon  of  our 
thoughts,  it  sweeps  up  and  over  us  just  in  pro- 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING  I  19 

portion  as  we  grow  hungrier  and  fainter,  till 
at  last  it  overwhelms  us  in  depression  and 
despair.  "Why?"  we  ask  ourselves,  "why  has 
not  A.  written  to  us  for  so  long?  What  will 

B.  think  of  such  and  such  a  transaction  ?     How 
is  our  pecuniary  concern  with  C.  to  be  settled? 
What  is  the  meaning  of  that  odd  little  twitch 
we  have   felt   so   often    here    or   there    about 
our  persons?"     The  answer  to  our  thoughts, 
prompted    by   the   evil   genius   of    famine,   is 
always  lugubrious  in    the   extreme.     "A.  has 
not  written  because  he  is  dead.     B.  will  quar- 
rel with  us  forever  because  of  that  transaction. 

C.  will  never  pay  us  our  money,  or  we  shall 
never  be  able  to  pay  C.     That  twitch  which 
we  have  so  thoughtlessly  disregarded   is   the 
premonitory  symptom  of  the  most  horrible  of 
all  human  maladies,  of  which  we  shall  die  in 
agonies  and  leave  a  circle  of  sorrowing  friends 
before  the  close  of  the  ensuing  year."     Such 
are  the  id'ees  noires  which  present  themselves 
when  we  want  our  dinner ;  and  the  best-inten- 
tioned  people  in  the  world,  forsooth !    recom- 
mend us  to  summon  them  round  us  by  fasting, 
as  if  they  were  a  company  of  cherubim  instead 
of  imps  of  quite  another  character !     But  the 
scene  undergoes  a  transformation  bordering  on 
the  miraculous  when  we  have  eaten  a  slice  of 


I2O  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

mutton  and  drunk  half  a  glass  of  sherry.  If 
we  revert  now  to  our  recent  meditations,  we 
are  quite  innocently  astonished  to  think  what 
could  possibly  have  made  us  so  anxious  with- 
out any  reasonable  ground.  Of  course,  A. 
has  not  written  to  us  because  he  always  goes 
grouse-shooting  at  this  season.  B.  will  never 
take  the  trouble  to  think  about  our  little  trans- 
action. C.  is  certain  to  pay  us,  or  we  can 
readily  raise  money  to  pay  him ;  and  our 
twitch  means  nothing  worse  than  a  touch  of 
rheumatics  or  an  ill-fitting  garment. 

Beyond  the  alternations  of  fasting  and  feast- 
ing, still  more  amazing  are  the  results  of  nar- 
cotics, alcoholic  beverages,  and  of  tea  and 
coffee.  Every  species  of  wine  exercises  a 
perceptibly  different  influence  of  its  own, 
from  the  cheery  and  social  "sparkling  grape 
of  Eastern  France "  to  the  solemn  black  wine 
of  Oporto,  the  fit  accompaniment  of  the  blandly 
dogmatic  post-prandial  prose  of  elderly  gentle- 
men of  orthodox  sentiments.  A  cup  of  strong 
coffee  clears  the  brain  and  makes  the  thoughts 
transparent,  while  one  of  green  tea  drives  them 
fluttering  like  dead  leaves  before  the  wind. 
Time  and  learning  would  fail  to  describe  the 
yet  more  marvellous  effects  of  opium,  hem- 
lock, henbane,  haschish,  bromide,  and  chloral. 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING  121 

Every  one  of  these  narcotics  produces  a  differ- 
ent hue  of  the  mental  window  through  which 
we  look  out  on  the  world;  sometimes  distorting 
all  objects  in  the  wildest  manner  (like  opium), 
sometimes  (like  chloral)  acting  only  perceptibly 
by  removing  the  sense  of  disquiet  and  restoring 
our  thoughts  to  the  white  light  of  common- 
sense  cheerfulness ;  and  again  acting  quite  dif- 
ferently on  the  thoughts  of  different  persons, 
and  of  the  same  persons  at  different  times. 

Only  secondary  to  the  effects  of  inwardly 
imbibed  stimulants  or  narcotics  are  those  of 
the  outward  atmosphere,  which  in  bracing 
weather  makes  our  thoughts  crisp  like  the 
frosted  grass,  and  in  heavy  November  causes 
them  to  drip  chill  and  slow  and  dull,  like  the 
moisture  from  the  mossy  eaves  of  the  Moated 
Grange.  Burning,  glaring  Southern  sunshine 
dazes  our  minds  as  much  as  our  eyes,  and  a 
London  fog  obfuscates  them,  so  that  a  man 
might  honestly  plead  that  he  could  no  more 
argue  clearly  in  the  fog  than  the  Irishman 
could  spell  correctly  with  a  bad  pen  and 
muddy  ink. 

Nor  are  mouths,  eyes,  and  lungs  by  any 
means  the  only  organs  through  which  influ- 
ences arrive  at  our  brain,  modifying  the 
thoughts  which  proceed  from  them.  The 


122  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

sense  of  Smelling,  when  gratified  by  the  odors 
of  woods  and  gardens  and  hay-fields,  or  even 
of  delicately  perfumed  rooms,  lifts  all  our 
thoughts  into  a  region  wherein  the  Beautiful, 
the  Tender,  and  the  Sublime  may  impress  us 
freely;  while  the  same  sense,  offended  by  dis- 
gusting and  noxious  odors,  as  of  coarse  cook- 
ery, open  sewers,  or  close  chambers  inhabited 
by  vulgar  people,  thrusts  us  down  into  an 
opposite  stratum  of  feeling,  wherein  poetry 
entereth  not,  and  our  very  thoughts  smell  of 
garlic.  Needless  to  add  that  in  a  still  more 
transcendent  way  Music  seizes  on  the  thoughts 
of  the  musically-minded,  and  bears  them  off  in 
its  talons  over  sea  and  land,  and  up  to  Olym- 
pus like  Ganymede.  Two  easily  distinguish- 
able mental  influences  seem  to  belong  to 
music,  according  as  it  is  heard  by  those  who 
really  appreciate  it  or  by  others  who  are 
unable  to  do  so.  To  the  former  it  opens  a 
book  of  poetry,  which  they  follow  word  for 
word  after  the  performer,  as  if  he  read  it  to 
them,  thinking  the  thoughts  of  the  composer 
in  succession  with  scarcely  greater  uncertainty 
or  vagueness  than  if  they  were  expressed  in 
verbal  language  of  a  slightly  mystical  descrip- 
tion. To  the  latter  the  book  is  closed;  but 
though  the  listener's  own  thoughts  unroll 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING  123 

themselves  uninterrupted  by  the  composer's 
ideas,  they  are  very  considerably  colored 
thereby.  "  I  delight  in  music,"  said  once  Sir 
Charles  Lyell  to  me :  "  I  am  always  able  to 
think  out  my  work  better  while  it  is  going 
on  ! "  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  resumed  at  the 
moment  a  disquisition  concerning  the  date  of 
the  Glacial  Period  at  the  precise  point  at 
which  it  had  been  interrupted  by  the  per- 
formance of  a  symphony  of  Beethoven,  having 
evidently  mastered  in  the  interval  an  intricate 
astronomical  knot.  To  ordinary  mortals  with 
similar  deficiency  of  musical  sense,  harmonious 
sound  seems  to  spread  a  halo  like  that  of  light, 
causing  every  subject  of  contemplation  to  seem 
glorified,  as  a  landscape  appears  in  a  dewy  sun- 
rise. Memories  rise  to  the  mind  and  seem  in- 
finitely more  affecting  than  at  other  times, 
affections  still  living  grow  doubly  tender,  new 
beauties  appear  in  the  picture  or  the  landscape 
before  our  eyes,  and  passages  of  remembered 
prose  or  poetry  float  through  our  brains  in 
majestic  cadence.  In  a  word,  the  sense  of  the 
Beautiful,  the  Tender,  the  Sublime,  is  vividly 
aroused,  and  the  atmosphere  of  familiarity  and 
commonplace,  wherewith  the  real  beauty  and 
sweetness  of  life  are  too  often  veiled,  is  lifted 
for  the  hour.  As  in  a  camera-obscura  or 


124  THOUGHTS    ABOUT   THINKING 

mirror,  the  very  trees  and  grass  which  we  had 
looked  on  a  thousand  times  are  seen  to  possess 
unexpected  loveliness.  But  all  this  can  only 
happen  to  the  non-musical  soul  when  the  har- 
mony to  which  it  listens  is  really  harmonious, 
and  when  it  comes  at  an  appropriate  time, 
when  the  surrounding  conditions  permit  and 
incline  the  man  to  surrender  himself  to  its 
influences;  in  a  word,  when  there  is  nothing 
else  demanding  his  attention.  The  most  bar- 
barous of  the  practices  of  royalty  and  civic 
magnificence  is  that  of  employing  music  as  an 
accompaniment  to  feasts.  It  involves  a  con- 
fusion of  the  realm  of  the  real  and  ideal,  and 
of  one  sense  with  another,  as  childish  as  that 
of  the  little  girl  who  took  out  a  peach  to  eat 
while  bathing  in  the  sea.  Next  to  music 
during  the  dinner-time  comes  music  in  the 
midst  of  a  cheerful  evening  party,  where,  when 
every  intellect  present  is  strung  up  to  the  note 
of  animated  conversation  and  brilliant  repartee, 
there  is  a  sudden  douche  of  solemn  chords  from 
the  region  of  the  pianoforte,  and  presently  some 
well-meaning  gentleman  endeavors  to  lift  up  all 
the  lazy  people,  who  are  lounging  in  easy-chairs 
after  a  good  dinner,  into  the  empyrean  of  emo- 
tion "  sublime  upon  the  seraph  wings  of  ecstasy  " 
of  Beethoven  or  Mozart ;  or  some  meek  damsel, 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING  125 

with  plaintive  note,  calls  on  them,  in  Schubert's 
Addio,  to  break  their  hearts  at  the  memory  or 
anticipation  of  those  mortal  sorrows  which  are 
either  behind  or  before  every  one  of  us,  and 
which  it  is  either  agony  or  profanation  to 
think  of  at  such  a  moment.  All  this  is  as- 
suredly intensely  barbarous.  The  same  people 
who  like  to  mix  up  the  ideal  pleasure  of  music 
with  incongruous  enjoyments  of  another  kind 
would  be  guilty  of  giving  a  kiss  with  their 
mouths  full  of  bread  and  cheese.  As  to  what 
we  may  term  extra-mural  music,  the  hideous 
noises  made  by  the  aid  'of  vile  machinery  in 
the  street,  it  is  hard  to  find  words  of  con- 
demnation strong  enough  for  it.  Probably 
the  organ-grinders  of  London  have  done  more 
in  the  last  twenty  years  to  detract  from  the 
quality  and  quantity  of  the  highest  kind  of 
mental  work  done  by  the  nation  than  any  two 
or  three  colleges  of  Oxford  or  Cambridge  have 
effected  to  increase  it.  One  mathematician 
alone,  as  he  informed  the  writer,  estimated  the 
cost  of  the  increased  mental  labor  they  have 
imposed  upon  him  and  his  clerks  at  several 
thousand  pounds'  worth  of  first-class  work,  for 
which  the  State  practically  paid  in  the  added 
length  of  time  needed  for  his  calculations. 
Not  much  better  are  those  church  bells  which 


126  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

now  sound  a  trumpet  before  the  good  people 
who  attend  "  matins  "  and  other  daily  services 
at  hours  when  their  profane  neighbors  are 
wearily  sleeping  or  anxiously  laboring  at  their 
appointed  tasks. 

Next  to  our  bodily  Sensations  come  in  order 
of  influence  on  our  thoughts  the  Places  in 
which  we  happen  to  do  our  thinking.  Medi- 
tating like  the  pious  Harvey  "  Among  the 
Tombs"  is  one  thing;  doing  the  same  on  a 
breezy  mountain  side  among  the  gorse  and  the 
heather,  quite  another.  Jostling  our  way  in  a 
crowded  street  or  roaming  in  a  solitary  wood, 
rattling  in  an  English  express  train  or  floating 
by  moonlight  in  a  Venetian  gondola  or  an  Egyp- 
tian dahabieh,  though  each  and  all  favorable 
conditions  for  thinking,  create  altogether  dis- 
tinct classes  of  lucubrations.  If  we  endeavor 
to  define  what  are  the  surroundings  among 
which  Thought  is  best  sustained  and  most 
vigorous,  we  shall  probably  find  good  reason 
to  reverse  not  a  few  of  our  accepted  and  famil- 
iar judgments.  The  common  idea,  for  example, 
that  we  ponder  very  profoundly  by  the  sea- 
shore, is,  I  am  persuaded,  a  baseless  delusion. 
We  think  indeed  that  we  are  thinking,  but  for 
the  most  part  our  minds  merely  lie  open,  like 
so  many  oysters,  to  the  incoming  waves,  and 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT   THINKING  127 

with  scarcely  greater  intellectual  activity.  The 
very  charm  of  the  great  Deep  seems  to  lie  in 
the  fact  that  it  reduces  us  to  a  state  of  mental 
emptiness  and  vacuity,  while  our  vanity  is 
soothed  by  the  notion  that  we  are  thinking 
with  unwonted  emphasis  and  perseverance. 
Amphitrite,  the  enchantress,  mesmerizes  us 
with  the  monotonous  passes  of  her  billowy 
hands,  and  lulls  us  into  a  slumberous  hypno- 
tism wherein  we  meekly  do  her  bidding,  and  fix 
our  eyes  and  thoughts,  like  biologized  men,  on 
the  rising  and  falling  of  every  wave.  If  it  be 
tempestuous  weather,  we  watch  open-mouthed 
till  the  beautiful  white  crests  topple  over  and 
dash  in  storm  and  thunder  up  the  beach ; 
and,  if  it  be  a  summer  evening's  calm,  we  note 
with  placid,  never-ending  contentment  how  the 
wavelets,  like  little  children,  run  up  softly  and 
swiftly  on  the  golden  strand  to  deposit  their 
gifts  of  shells  and  seaweed,  and  then  retreat, 
shy  and  ashamed  of  their  boldness,  to  hide 
themselves  once  again  under  the  flowing  skirts 
of  Mother  Ocean. 

Again,  divines  and  poets  have  united  to 
bolster  up  our  convictions  that  we  do  a  great 
deal  of  important  thinking  at  night  when  we 
lie  awake  in  bed.  Every  preacher  points  to 
the  hours  of  the  "  silent  midnight,"  when  his 


128  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

warnings  will  surely  come  home,  and  sit  like 
incubi  on  the  breast  of  sinners  who,  too  often 
perhaps,  have  dozed  in  the  day-time  as  they 
flew,  bat-wise,  over  their  heads  from  the  pulpit. 
Shelley,  in  "  Queen  Mab,"  affords  us  a  terrible 
night  scene  of  a  king  who,  after  his  dinner  of 
"silence,  grandeur,  and  excess,"  finds  sleep 
abdicate  his  pillow  (probably  in  favor  of  indi- 
gestion); and  Tennyson,  in  "  Locksley  Hall," 
threatens  torments  of  memory  still  keener  to 
the  "shallow-hearted  cousin  Amy"  whenever 
she  may  happen  to  lie  meditating — 

"  In  the  dead,  unhappy  night,  and  when  the  rain  is  on  the  roof." 

Certainly,  if  there  be  any  time  in  the  twenty- 
four  hours  when  we  might  carry  on  consecu- 
tive chains  of  thought,  it  would  be  when  we 
lie  still  for  hours  undisturbed  by  sight  or  sound, 
having  nothing  to  do,  and  with  our  bodies  so 
far  comfortable  and  quiescent  as  to  give  the 
minimum  of  interruption  to  our  mental  proceed- 
ings. Far  be  it  from  me  to  deny  that  under 
such  favorable  auspices  some  people  may  think 
to  good  purpose.  But,  if  I  do  not  greatly  err, 
they  form  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule 
among  bad  sleepers.  As  the  Psalmist  of  old 
remarked,  it  is  generally  "  mischief  "  which  a 
man — wicked  or  otherwise  —  "devises  upon 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT   THINKING  129 

his  bed  " ;  and  the  truth  of  the  observation  in 
our  day  is  proved  from  the  harsh  Ukases  for 
domestic  government  which  are  commonly  pro- 
mulgated by  Paterfamilias  at  the  breakfast 
table,  and  by  the  sullenness  de  parti pris  which 
testifies  that  the  sleepless  brother,  sister,  or 
maiden  aunt  has  made  up  his  or  her  mind  dur- 
ing the  night  to  "  have  it  out "  with  So-and-so 
next  morning.  People  are  a  little  faint  and 
feverish  when  they  lie  awake,  and  nothing 
occurs  to  divert  their  minds  and  restore  them 
to  equanimity,  and  so  they  go  on  chewing  the 
bitter  cud  of  any  little  grudge.  Thus  it  comes 
to  pass  that,  while  Anger  causes  Sleeplessness, 
Sleeplessness  is  a  frequent  nurse  of  Anger.* 

Finally,  among  popular  delusions  concerning 
propitious  conditions  of  Thoughts,  must  be 
reckoned  the  belief  (which  has  driven  hermits 
and  philosophers  crazy)  that  thinking  is  better 
done  in  abnormal  isolation  than  in  the  natural 
social  state  of  man.  Of  course  there  is  benefit 
quite  incalculable  in  the  reservation  of  some 
portion  of  our  days  for  solitude.  How  much 
excuse  is  to  be  made  for  the  shortcomings,  the 
ill-tempers,  the  irreligion  of  those  poor  people 

*A  Chief  of  the  Police  Force  has  informed  me  that  arrests  of 
desperadoes  are  always  made,  if  practicable,  at  about  four  A.M.; 
that  hour  being  found  by  experience  to  be  the  one  when  animal 
courage  is  at  its  lowest  ebb  and  resistance  to  be  least  apprehended. 


130  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

who  are  scarcely  alone  for  half  an  hour  be- 
tween the  cradle  and  the  grave,  God  alone  can 
tell.  But,  with  such  reasonable  reservation  of 
our  hours  and  the  occasional  precious  enjoy- 
ment of  lonely  country  walks  or  rides,  the 
benefits  of  solitude,  even  on  Zimmermann's 
showing,  come  nearly  to  an  end;  and  there  is 
little  doubt  that,  instead  of  thinking  more,  the 
more  hours  of  loneliness  we  devote  to  doing  it, 
the  less  we  shall  really  think  at  all,  or  even 
retain  capacity  for  thinking  and  not  degenerate 
into  cabbages.  Our  minds  need  the  stimulus 
of  other  minds,  as  our  lungs  need  oxygen  to 
perform  their  functions.  After  all,  if  we  analyze 
the  exquisite  pleasure  afforded  us  by  brilliant 
and  suggestive  conversation,  one  of  its  largest 
elements  will  be  found  to  be  that  it  has  quick- 
ened our  thoughts  from  a  heavy  amble  into  a 
gallop.  A  really  fine  talk  between  half  a  dozen 
well-matched  and  thoroughly  cultivated  people, 
who  discuss  an  interesting  subject  with  their 
manifold  wealth  of  allusions,  arguments,  and 
illustrations,  is  a  sort  of  mental  Oaks  or  Derby- 
day,  wherein  our  brains  are  excited  to  their 
utmost  speed,  and  we  get  over  more  ground 
than  in  weeks  of  solitary  mooning  meditation. 
It  is  superfluous  to  add  that  if  our  constitu- 
tional mental  tendency  be  that  of  the  gentle- 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

man  who  naively  expressed  his  feelings  by 
saying  impressively  to  a  friend,  "  I  take  great 
interest  in  my  own  concerns,  I  assure  you  I 
do,"  it  seems  doubly  desirable  that  we  should 
overstep  our  petty  ring-fence  of  personal  hopes, 
fears,  and  emotions  of  all  kinds,  and  roam  with 
our  neighbors  over  their  dominions,  and  into 
further  outlying  regions  of  public  and  universal 
interest.  Of  all  ingenious  prescriptions  for 
making  a  miserable  moral  hypochondriac,  it  is 
difficult  to  imagine  a  better  than  the  orthodox 
plan  of  the  "  Selig-gemachende  Kirche "  for 
making  a  Saint.  Take  your  man  or  woman, 
with  a  morbidly  tender  conscience  and  a  perni- 
cious habit  of  self-introspection.  If  he  or  she 
have  an  agonizing  memory  of  wrong,  sin,  or 
sorrow  overshadowing  the  whole  of  life,  so 
much  the  better.  Then  shut  the  individual  up 
in  a  cell  like  a  toad  in  a  stone,  to  feed  on  his 
or  her  own  thoughts,  till  death  or  madness  puts 
an  end  to  the  experiment. 

But  if  the  seaside  and  solitude  and  the  mid- 
night couch  have  been  much  overrated  as  pro- 
pitious conditions  of  thought,  there  are,  per 
contra,  certain  other  conditions  of  it  the  value 
of  which  has  been  too  much  ignored.  The 
law  of  the  matter  seems  to  be  that  real  hard 
Thought,  like  Happiness,  rarely  comes  when 


132  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

we  have  made  elaborate  preparation  for  it; 
and  that  the  higher  part  of  the  mind  which  is 
to  be  exercised  works  much  more  freely  when 
a  certain  lower  part  (concerned  with  "  uncon- 
scious cerebration  ")  is  busy  about  some  little 
affairs  of  its  own  department  and  its  restless 
activity  is  thus  disposed  of.  Not  one  man  in 
fifty  does  his  best  thinking  quite  motionless, 
but  instinctively  employs  his  limbs  in  some 
way  when  his  brain  is  in  full  swing  of  argu- 
ment and  reflection.  Even  a  trifling  fidget  of 
the  hands  with  a  paper-knife,  a  flower,  a  piece 
of  twine,  or  the  bread  we  crumble  beside  our 
plate  at  dinner,  supplies  in  a  degree  this  desid- 
eratum, and  the  majority  of  people  never  carry 
on  an  animated  conversation  involving  rapid 
thought  without  indulging  in  some  such  habit. 
But  the  more  complete  employment  of  our  un- 
conscious cerebration  in  walking  up  or  down 
a  level  terrace  or  quarter-deck,  where  there  are 
no  passing  objects  to  distract  our  attention  and 
no  need  to  mark  where  we  plant  our  feet, 
seems  to  provide  even  better  for  smooth-flow- 
ing thought.  The  perfection  of  such  condi- 
tions is  attained  when  the  walk  in  question  is 
taken  of  a  still,  soft  November  evening,  when 
the  light  has  faded  so  far  as  to  blur  the  sur- 
rounding withered 'trees  and  flowers,  but  the 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 


133 


gentle  gray  sky  yet  affords  enough  vision  to 
prevent  embarrassment.  There  are  a  few  such 
hours  in  every  year  which  appear  absolutely 
invaluable  for  calm  reflection,  and  which  are 
grievously  wasted  by  those  who  hurry  indoors 
at  dusk  to  light  candles  and  sit  round  a  yet 
unneeded  fire. 

There  is  also  another  specially  favorable 
opportunity  for  abstruse  meditation,  which  I 
trust  I  may  be  pardoned  for  venturing  to  name. 
It  is  the  grand  occasion  afforded  by  the  laud- 
able custom  of  patiently  listening  to  dull  speak- 
ers or  readers  in  the  lecture-room  or  the  pulpit. 
A  moment's  reflection  will  surely  enable  the 
reader  to  corroborate  the  remark  that  we  sel- 
dom think  out  the  subject  of  a  new  book  or 
article,  or  elaborate  a  political  or  philanthropic 
scheme,  a  family  compact,  or  the  menu  of  a 
large  dinner,  with  so  much  precision  and  lucid- 
ity as  when  gazing  with  vacant  respectfulness 
at  a  gentleman  expatiating  with  elaborate  stu- 
pidity on  theology  or  science.  The  voice  of 
the  charmer  as  it  rises  and  falls  is  almost  as 
soothing  as  the  sound  of  the  waves  on  the 
shore,  but  not  quite  equally  absorbing  to  the 
attention  ;  while  the  repose  of  all  around  gently 
inclines  the  languid  mind  to  alight  like  a  but- 
terfly on  any  little  flower  it  may  find  in  the 


134  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

arid  waste,  and  suck  it  to  the  bottom.  This 
beneficent  result  of  sermon  and  lecture-hearing 
is,  however,  sometimes  deplorably  marred  by 
the  stuffiness  of  the  room,  the  hardness  and 
shallowness  of  the  seats  (as  in  that  place  of 
severe  mortification  of  the  flesh,  the  Royal 
Institution  in  Albemarle  Street),  and  lastly  by 
the  unpardonable  habit  of  many  orators  of  lift- 
ing their  voices  in  an  animated  way,  as  if  they 
really  had  something  to  say,  and  then  solemnly 
announcing  a  platitude, —  a  process  which  acts 
on  the  nerves  of  a  listener  as  it  must  act  on 
those  of  a  flounder  to  be  carried  up  into  the 
air  half  a  dozen  times  in  the  bill  of  a  heron 
and  then  dropped  flat  on  the  mud.  Under 
trials  like  these,  the  tormented  thoughts  of  the 
sufferer,  seeking  rest  and  finding  none,  are  apt 
to  assume  quite  unaccountable  and  morbid 
shapes,  and  indulge  in  freaks  of  an  irrational 
kind,  as  in  a  dream.  The  present  writer  and 
some  sober-minded  acquaintances  have,  for 
example,  all  felt  themselves  impelled  at  such 
hours  to  perform  aerial  flights  of  fancy  about 
the  church  or  lecture-room  in  the  character 
of  stray  robins  or  bats.  "  Here,"  they  think 
gravely  (quite  unconscious  for  the  moment  of 
the  absurdity  of  their  reflection),  "  here,  on  this 
edge  of  a  monument,  I  might  stand  and  take 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 


135 


flight  to  that  cornice  an  inch  wide,  whence  I 
might  run  along  to  the  top  of  that  pillar ;  and 
from  thence,  by  merely  touching  the  bald  tip  of 
the  preacher's  head,  I  might  alight  on  the  back 
of  that  plump  little  angel  on  the  tomb  opposite, 
while  a  final  spring  would  take  me  through 
the  open  pane  of  window  and  perch  me  on  the 
yew-tree  outside."  The  whole  may  perhaps  be 
reckoned  a  spontaneous  mythical  self-represen- 
tation of  the  Psalmist's  cry :  "  Oh  that  I  had 
wings  like  a  dove,  for  then  would  I  flee  away 
and  be  at  rest." 

Another  kind  of  meditation  under  the  same 
aggravated  affliction  is  afforded  by  making 
fantastic  pictures  out  of  the  stains  of  damp 
and  tracks  of  snails  on  the  wall,  which  often  (in 
village  churches  especially)  supply  the  young 
with  a  permanent  subject  of  contemplation  in 
"the  doctor  with  his  boots,"  the  "old  lady  and 
her  cap,"  and  the  huge  face  which  would  be 
quite  perfect  if  the  spectator  might  only  draw 
an  eye  where  one  is  missing,  as  in  the  fresco  of 
Dante  in  the  Bargello.  Occasionally,  the  sun- 
shine kindly  comes  in  and  makes  a  little  lively 
entertainment  on  his  own  account  by  throwing 
the  shadow  of  the  preacher's  head  ten  feet  long 
on  the  wall  behind  him,  causing  the  action  of 
his  jaws  to  resemble  the  vast  gape  of  a  croco- 


136  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

dile.  All  these,  however,  ought  perhaps  to  be 
counted  as  things  of  the  past ;  or,  at  least,  as 
very  "  Rural  Recreations  of  a  Country  Parish- 
ioner,'' as  A.  K.  H.  B.  might  describe  them. 
It  is  not  objects  to  distract  and  divert  the 
attention  which  anybody  can  complain  of  want- 
ing in  the  larger  number  of  modern  churches 
in  London. 

But,  if  our  thoughts  are  wont  to  wander  off 
into  fantastic  dreams  when  we  are  bored,  they 
have  likewise  a  most  unfortunate  propensity  to 
swerve  into  byways  of  triviality  no  less  mis- 
placed when,  on  the  contrary,  we  are  interested 
to  excess,  and  our  attention  has  been  fixed 
beyond  the  point  wherein  the  tension  can  be 
sustained. 

Every  one  has  recognized  the  truth  of  Dick- 
ens's  description  of  Fagin,  on  his  trial,  thinking 
of  the  pattern  of  the  carpet ;  and  few  of  us  can 
recall  hours  of  anguish  and  anxiety  without 
carrying  along  with  their  tragic  memories 
certain  objects  on  which  the  eye  fastened  with 
inexplicable  tenacity.  In  lesser  cases,  and  when 
we  have  been  listening  to  an  intensely  interest- 
ing political  speech,  or  to  a  profoundly  thought- 
ful sermon  (for  even  Habitans  in  Sicco  may 
sometimes  meet  such  cases),  the  mind  seems 
to  "shy"  suddenly,  like  a  restive  horse,  from 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT   THINKING  137 

the  whole  topic  under  consideration,  and  we 
find  ourselves,  intellectually  speaking,  landed 
in  a  ditch. 

Another  singular  phenomenon  under  such 
circumstances  is  that,  on  returning,  perhaps 
after  the  interval  of  years,  to  a  spot  wherein 
such  excessive  mental  tension  has  been  ex- 
perienced, some  of  us  are  suddenly  vividly 
impressed  with  the  idea  that  we  have  been 
sitting  there  during  all  the  intervening  time, 
gazing  fixedly  on  the  same  pillars  and  cornices, 
the  same  trees  projected  against  the  evening 
sky,  or  whatever  other  objects  happen  to  be 
before  our  eyes.  It  would  appear  that  the 
impression  of  such  objects  made  on  the  retina, 
while  the  mind  was  wholly  and  vehemently 
absorbed  in  other  things,  must  be  somehow 
photographed  on  the  brain  in  a  different  way 
from  the  ordinary  pictures  to  which  we  have 
given  their  fair  share  of  notice  as  they  passed 
before  us,  and  that  we  are  dimly  aware  they 
have  been  taken  so  long.  The  sight  of  them 
once  again  bringing  out  this  abnormal  con- 
sciousness is  intensely  painful,  as  if  the  real 
self  had  been  chained  for  years  to  the  spot, 
and  only  a  phantom  "  I ''  had  ever  gone  away 
and  lived  a  natural  human  existence  elsewhere. 

Passing,  now,  from  the  external  conditions 


138  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

of  our  Thinking,  if  we  attempt  to  classify  the 
Thoughts  themselves,  we  shall  arrive,  I  fear,  at 
the  painful  discovery  that  the  majority  of  us 
think  most  about  the  least  things,  and  least 
about  the  greatest ;  and  that,  in  short,  the  mass 
of  our  lucubrations  is  in  the  inverse  ratio  of 
their  value.  For  example,  a  share  of  our 
thoughts,  quite  astonishing  in  quantity,  is  oc- 
cupied by  petty  and  trivial  Arrangements. 
Rich  or  poor,  it  is  an  immense  amount  of 
thought  which  all  (save  the  most  care-engrossed 
statesmen  or  absorbed  philosophers)  give  to 
these  wretched  little  concerns.  The  wealthy 
gentleman  thinks  of  how  and  where  and  when 
he  will  send  his  servants  and  horses  here 
and  there,  of  what  company  he  shall  entertain, 
of  the  clearing  of  his  woods,  the  preservation 
of  his  game,  and  twenty  matters  of  similar 
import;  while  his  wife  is  pondering  equally 
profoundly  on  the  furniture  and  ornaments  of 
her  rooms,  the  patterns  of  her  flower-beds  or 
her  worsted-work,  the  menu  of  her  dinner, 
and  the  frocks  of  her  little  girls.  Poor  people 
need  to  think  much  more  anxiously  of  the 
perpetual  problem,  "  How  to  make  both  ends 
meet,"  by  pinching  in  this  direction  and  earn- 
ing something  in  that,  and  by  all  the  thousand 
shifts  and  devices  by  which  life  can  be  carried 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING  139 

on  at  the  smallest  possible  expenditure.  One 
of  the  very  worst  evils  of  limited  means  con- 
sists in  the  amount  of  thinking  about  sordid 
little  economies  which  becomes  imperative 
when  every  meal,  every  toilet,  and  every  at- 
tempt at  locomotion  is  a  battle-field  of  ingenu- 
ity and  self-denial  against  ever-impending  debt 
and  difficulty.  Among  men,  the  evil  is  most 
commonly  combated  by  energetic  efforts  to 
earn  rather  than  to  save  ;  but  among  women,  to 
whom  so  few  fields  of  honest  industry  are  open, 
the  necessity  for  a  perpetual  guard  against  the 
smallest  freedom  of  expense  falls ,  with  all  its 
cruel  and  soul-crushing  weight,  and  on  the 
faces  of  thousands  of  them  may  be  read  the 
sad  story  of  youthful  enthusiasm  all  nipped  by 
pitiful  cares,  anxieties,  and  meannesses,  per- 
haps the  most  foreign  of  all  sentiments  to 
their  naturally  liberal  and  generous  hearts. 

Next  to  actual  arrangements  which  have 
some  practical  use,  however  small,  an  inordi- 
nate quantity  of  thought  is  wasted  by  most  of 
us  on  wholly  unreal  plans  and  hypotheses 
which  the  thinker  never  even  supposes  to  bear 
any  relation  with  the  living  world.  Such  are 
the  endless  moony  speculations,  "  if  such  a 
thing  had  not  happened  "  which  did  happen,  or 
"if  So-and-so  had  gone  hither"  instead  of 


I4O  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

thither,  or  "  if  I  had  only  said  or  done  "  what 
I  did  not  say  or  do,  "  there  would  have  fol- 
lowed"—  heaven  knows  what.  Sometimes  we 
pursue  such  endless  and  aimless  guessings 
with  a  companion,  and  then  we  generally  stop 
short  pretty  soon  with  the  vivid  sense  of  the 
absurdity  of  our  behavior;  unless  in  such  a 
case  as  that  of  the  celebrated  old  childless 
couple,  who,  looking  back  over  their  fireside  on 
forty  years  of  unbroken  union,  proceeded  to 
speculate  on  what  they  should  have  done  if 
they  had  had  children,  and  finally  quarrelled 
and  separated  for  ever  on  a  divergence  of 
opinion  respecting  the  best  profession  for  their 
(imaginary)  second  son.  But,  when  alone,  we 
go  on  weaving  interminable  cobwebs  out  of 
such  gossamer  threads  of  thought,  like  poor 
Perrette  with  her  pot  of  milk, —  a  tale  the 
ubiquity  of  which  among  all  branches  of  the 
Aryan  race  sufficiently  proves  the  universality 
of  the  practice  of  building  chateaux  en  Es- 
pagne. 

Of  course,  with  every  one  who  has  a  profes- 
sion or  business  of  any  kind,  a  vast  quantity 
of  thought  is  expended  necessarily  upon  its 
details,  insomuch  that  to  prevent  themselves, 
when  in  company  from  "  talking  shop "  is 
somewhat  difficult.  The  tradesman,  medical 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT   THINKING  141 

man,  lawyer,  soldier,  landholder,  have  each 
plenty  to  think  of  in  his  own  way;  and  in 
the  case  of  any  originality  of  work  —  such  as 
belongs  to  the  higher  class  of  literature  and 
art  —  the  necessity  for  arduous  and  sustained 
thought  in  composition  is  so  great  that  (on  the 
testimony  of  a  great  many  wives)  I  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  a  fine  statue,  picture,  or 
book  is  rarely  planned  without  at  least  a  week 
of  domestic  irritation  and  discomfort,  and  the 
summary  infliction  of  little  deserved  chastise- 
ment on  the  junior  branches  of  the  distin- 
guished author  or  artist's  family. 

Mechanical  contrivances  obviously  give  im- 
mense occupation  to  those  singular  persons 
who  can  love  Machines,  and  do  not  regard 
them  (as  I  must  confess  is  my  case)  with  min- 
gled mistrust,  suspicion,  and  abhorrence,  as 
small  models  of  the  Universe  on  the  Atheistic 
Projection.  Again,  for  the  discovery  of  any 
chemical  desideratum,  ceaseless  industry  and 
years  of  thought  are  expended ;  and  a  Palissy 
deems  a  quarter  of  a  lifetime  properly  given 
to  pondering  upon  the  best  glaze  for  crockery. 
Only  by  such  sacrifices,  indeed,  have  both  the 
fine  and  the  industrial  arts  attained  success; 
and  happy  must  the  man  be  counted  whose 
millions  of  thoughts  expended  on  such  topics 


142  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

have  at  the  end  attained  any  practical  conclu- 
sion to  be  added  to  the  store  of  human  knowl- 
edge. Not  so  (albeit  the  thoughts  are  much 
after  the  same  working  character)  are  the  end- 
less meditations  of  the  idle  on  things  wholly 
personal  and  ephemeral,  such  as  the  inordi- 
nate care  about  the  details  of  furniture  and 
equipage  now  prevalent  among  the  rich  in 
England,  and  the  lavish  waste  of  feminine 
minds  on  double  acrostics,  art,  embroidery, 
and,  above  all,  Dress !  A  young  lady  once 
informed  me  that,  after  having  for  some  hours 
retired  to  repose,  her  sister,  who  slept  in  the 
same  room,  had  disturbed  her  in  the  middle 
of  the  night :  "  Eugenie,  waken  up !  I  have 
thought  of  a  trimming  for  our  new  gowns ! " 
Till  larger  and  nobler  interests  are  opened  to 
women,  I  fear  there  must  be  a  good  many 
whose  "  dream  by  night  and  thought  by  day " 
is  of  trimmings. 

When  we  have  deducted  all  these  silly  and 
trivial  and  useless  thoughts  from  the  sum  of 
human  thinking, —  and  evil  and  malicious 
thoughts,  still  worse  by  far, —  what  small  re- 
siduum of  room  is  there,  alas,  for  anything 
like  real  serious  reflection!  How  seldom  do 
the  larger  topics  presented  by  history,  science, 
or  philosophy  engage  us!  How  yet  more 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING  143 

rarely  do  we  face  the  great  questions  of  the 
whence,  the  why,  and  the  whither  of  all  this 
hurrying  life  of  ours,  pouring  out  its  tiny 
sands  so  rapidly !  To  some,  indeed,  a  noble 
philanthropic  purpose  or  profound  religious 
faith  gives  not  only  consistency  and  mean- 
ing to  life,  but  supplies  a  background  to  all 
thoughts, —  an  object  high  above  them,  to 
which  the  mental  eye  turns  at  every  moment. 
But  this  is,  alas !  the  exception  far  more  than 
the  rule;  and,  where  there  is  no  absorbing 
human  affection,  it  is  on  trifles  light  as  air 
and  interests  transitory  as  a  passing  cloud 
that  are  usually  fixed  those  minds  whose  boast 
it  is  that  their  thoughts  "travel  through 
eternity." 

Alone  among  Thoughts  of  joy  or  sorrow, 
hope  or  fear,  stands  the  grim,  soul-chilling 
thought  of  Death.  It  is  a  strange  fact  that, 
face  it  and  attempt  to  familiarize  ourselves 
with  it  as  we  may,  this  one  thought  ever  pre- 
sents itself  as  something  fresh,  something  we 
had  never  really  thought  before, — "  /  shall 
die  ! "  There  is  a  shock  in  the  simple  words 
ever  repeated  each  time  we  speak  them  in 
the  depths  of  our  souls. 

There  are  few  instances  of  the  great  change 
which  has  passed  over  the  spirit  of  the  mod- 


144  THOUGHTS    ABOUT   THINKING 

ern  world  more  striking  than  the  revolution 
which  has  taken  place  in  our  judgment  re- 
specting the  moral  expediency  of  perpetually 
thinking  about  Death.  Was  it  that  the  whole 
Classic  world  was  so  intensely  entrancing  and 
delightful  that,  to  wean  themselves  from  its 
fascinations  and  reduce  their  minds  to  com- 
posure, the  Saints  found  it  beneficial  to  live 
continually  with  a  skull  at  their  side  ?  For 
something  like  sixteen  centuries  Christian 
teachers  seem  all  to  have  taken  it  for  granted 
that  merely  to  write  up  "  Memento  mori "  was 
to  give  to  mankind  the  most  salutary  and 
edifying  counsel.  Has  anybody  faith  in  the 
same  nostrum  now,  and  is  there  a  single  Saint 
Francis  or  Saint  Theresa  who  keeps  his  or  her 
pet  skull  alongside  of  his  Bible  and  Prayer- 
book  ? 

A  parallel  might  also  be  drawn  between  the 
medical  and  spiritual  treatment  in  vogue  in 
former  times  and  in  our  own.  Up  to  our 
generation,  when  a  man  was  ill,  the  first  idea 
of  the  physician  was  to  bleed  him  and  reduce 
him  in  every  way  by  "  dephlogistic  "  treatment, 
after  which  it  was  supposed  the  disease  was 
"  drawn  off " ;  and,  if  the  patient  expired,  the 
survivors  were  consoled  by  the  reflection  that 
Dr.  Sangrado  had  done  all  which  science  and 


THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING  145 

skill  could  effect  to  preserve  so  valuable  a  life. 
In  the  memory  of  some  now  living,  the  pres- 
ence of  a  medical  man  with  a  lancet  in  his 
pocket  (instantly  used  on  the  emergency  of  a 
fall  from  horseback  or  a  fit  of  apoplexy,  epi- 
lepsy, or  intoxication),  was  felt  by  alarmed  re- 
lations to  be  quite  providential.  Only  some- 
where about  the  period  of  the  first  visitation  of 
cholera  in  1832  this  phlebotomizing  dropped 
out  of  fashion ;  and,  when  the  doctors  had 
pretty  nearly  abandoned  it,  a  theory  was 
broached  that  it  was  the  human  constitution, 
not  medical  science,  which  had  undergone  a 
change,  and  that  men  and  women  were  so 
much  weaker  than  heretofore  that,  even  in 
fever,  they  now  needed  to  be  supported  by 
stimulants.  Very  much  in  the  same  way  it 
would  appear  that  in  former  days  our  spiritual 
advisers  imagined  they  could  cure  moral  dis- 
ease by  reducing  the  vital  action  of  all  the 
faculties  and  passions,  and  bringing  a  man 
to  feel  himself  a  "  dying  creature  "  by  way  of 
training  him  to  live.  Nowadays  our  divines 
endeavor  to  fill  us  with  warmer  feelings  and 
more  vigorous  will,  and  tell  us  that 

"  'Tis  life  of  which  our  veins  are  scant ; 
O  Life,  not  Death,  for  which  we  pant ; 
More  life,  and  fuller,  that  we  want." 


146  THOUGHTS    ABOUT    THINKING 

Is  it  possible  that  human  nature  is  really  a 
little  less  vigorous  and  passionate  than  it  was 
when  Antony  and  Cleopatra  lived  on  the 
earth,  or  when  the  genius  of  Shakspere  made 
them  live  on  the  stage  ? 


ESSAY  V. 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW. 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW. 


THE  father  of  Grecian  philosophy  held  that 
"  Man  was  created  to  know  and  to  contem- 
plate." The  father  of  Hebrew  philosophy  — 
whose  "  Song,"  if  not  his  "  Wisdom,"  is  canon- 
ical, and  whose  judgment,  if  not  his  life,  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  divinely  guided  —  taught 
the  somewhat  different  lesson :  "  He  that  in- 
creased! knowledge  increaseth  sorrow." 

We  have  been  more  or  less  steadily  trying 
the  validity  of  Solomon's  dictum  for  about 
three  thousand  years.  Would  it  be  premature 
to  take  stock  of  the  results,  and  weigh 
whether  it  be  really  for  human  well-being  or 
the  reverse  that  Knowledge  is  "increasing," 
not  only  at  the  inevitable  rate  of  the  accumu- 
lating experience  of  generations,  but  also  at 
the  highly  accelerated  pace  attained  by  our 
educational  machinery  ?  It  is  at  least  slightly 
paradoxical  that  the  same  State  should  call  on 
its  clergy  to  teach  as  an  infallible  truth  that 


I5O      TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW 

"  he  that  increaseth  knowledge  increaseth  sor- 
row," and  at  the  same  time  decree  for  all  its 
subjects,  as  if  it  were  a  highly  benevolent 
measure,  universal  compulsory  education. 

I  fear  that  the  prejudice  in  favor  of  Knowl- 
edge is  so  potent  that  no  reader  will  give  me 
credit  for  entering  on  this  inquiry  in  any  other 
spirit  than  one  of  banter.  Nevertheless,  I  pro- 
pose in  the  present  paper  to  examine,  to  the 
best  of  my  ability,  the  general  bearings  of 
book-knowledge  upon  human  happiness  and 
virtue,  and  so  attain  to  some  conclusion  on  the 
matter,  and  decide  whether  Solomon  did  or 
did  not  give  proof  of  profound  sagacity  in 
originating  the  axiom  that  "  Ignorance  is 
bliss "  in  the  usual  negative  form  of  Hebrew 
verities ;  and  also  in  foretelling  (nearly  thirty 
centuries  before  the  present  London  publish- 
ing season)  that  "of  the  making  of  books 
there  is  no  end."  Knowledge,  like  other  evils, 
it  seems,  is  infinitely  reproductive. 

The  larger  and  simpler  objections  to  book- 
lore  lie  on  the  surface  of  the  case.  First. 
Health,  bodily  activity,  and  muscular  strength 
are  almost  inevitably  exchanged  in  a  certain 
measure  for  learning.  Ardent  students  are 
rarely  vigorous  or  agile ;  and,  in  the  humbler 
ranks,  the  loss  of  ruddy  cheeks  and  stalwart 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW       151 

limbs  among  the  children  of  the  peasantry, 
after  schools  have  been  established  in  a  vil- 
lage, has  been  constantly  observed.  The 
close  and  heated  class-rooms  in  which  the 
poor  urchins  sit  (often  in  winter  with  clothes 
and  shoes  drenched  through  with  rain  or 
snow)  form  a  bad  exchange,  in  a  physical 
point  of  view,  for  the  scamper  across  the  com- 
mon, and  the  herding  of  sheep  on  the  moun- 
tain. Let  us  put  the  case  at  its  lowest.  Sup- 
pose that,  out  of  three  persons  who  receive  an 
ordinary  book-education,  one  always  loses  a 
certain  share  of  health;  that  he  is  never  so 
vigorous  as  he  would  have  been,  and  is  more 
liable  to  consumption,  dyspepsia,  and  other 
woes  incident  to  sedentary  humanity,  of  which 
again  he  bequeaths  a  tendency  to  his  off- 
spring. Here  is  surely  some  deduction  from 
the  supposed  sum  of  happiness  derivable  from 
knowledge.  Can  all  the  flowers  of  rhetoric 
of  all  the  poets  make  atonement  for  the  loss 
of  the  bounding  pulse,  the  light,  free  step,  the 
cool  brain  of  perfect  health  ? 

Secondly.  It  is  not  only  the  health  of  life's 
noon  and  evening  which  is  more  or  less  com- 
promised by  study,  but  the  morning  hours  of 
life's  glorious  prime,  hours  such  as  never  can 
come  again  on  this  side  heaven,  which  are 


152       TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW 

given  to  dull,  dog's-eared  books  and  dreary 
"copies,"  and  sordid  slates,  instead  of  to  cow- 
slips and  buttercups,  the  romp  in  the  hay-field, 
and  the  flying  of  the  white  kite,  which  soars  up 
into  the  deep  dark  blue  and  carries  the  young 
eyes  after  it  where  the  unseen  lark  is  singing 
and  the  child-angels  are  playing  among  the 
rolling  clouds  of  summer.  There  was  once 
a  child  called  from  such  dreams  to  her  lesson, 
—  the  dreary  lesson  of  learning  to  spell  possi- 
bly those  very  words  which  her  pen  is  now 
tracing  on  this  page.  The  little  girl  looked 
at  her  peacock,  sitting  in  his  glory  on  the  bal- 
ustrade of  the  old  granite  steps,  with  nothing 
earthly  ever  to  do  but  to  sun  himself  and  eat 
nice  brown  bread  and  call  "  Pea-ho ! "  every 
morning,  and  the  poor  child  burst  into  a 
storm  of  weeping,  and  sobbed,  "  I  wish  I  were 
a  peacock  !  I  wish  I  were  a  peacock  ! "  Truly 
Learning  ought  to  have  something  to  show 
to  compensate  for  the  thousand  tears  shed  in 
similar  anguish !  School-rooms  are  usually  the 
ugliest,  dullest,  most  airless  and  sunless  rooms 
in  the  houses  where  they  exist;  and  yet  in 
these  dens  we  ruthlessly  imprison  children  day 
after  day,  year  after  year,  till  childhood  itself 
is  over,  never,  never  to  return.  And  then  the 
young  man  or  woman  may  go  forth  freely 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW       153 

among  the  fields  and  woods,  and  find  them 
fair  and  sweet,  but  never  so  fair  or  so  sweet 
as  they  were  in  the  wasted  years  of  infancy. 
Who  can  lay  his  hand  on  his  heart,  and  say 
that  a  cowslip  or  a  daffodil  smells  now  as  it 
used  to  smell  when  it  was  so  very  much  easier 
to  pluck  it,  quite  on  our  own  level  ?  Do  straw- 
berries taste  as  they  did,  and  is  there  the  same 
drop  of  honey  in  each  of  the  flowerets  of  the 
red  clover?  Are  modern  kittens  and  puppies 
half  so  soft  and  so  funny  as  they  were  in 
former  days  when  we  were  young?  No  one 
will  dare  affirm  any  of  these  things  who  has 
reached  years  of  discretion.  Is  it  not  then  a 
most  short-sighted  policy — giving  away  of  a 
bird  in  hand  for  a  bird  in  the  bush  —  to  sacri- 
fice the  joyous  hours  of  young  existence  for 
the  value  of  advantages  ( if  advantages  indeed 
they  be)  to  be  reaped  in  later  and  duller  years? 
Watch  a  child  at  play,  O  reader,  if  you  have 
forgotten  your  own  feelings.  Let  it  be  Col- 
eridge's 

"  Little  singing,  dancing  elf, 
Singing,  dancing  by  itself." 

Catch,  if  your  dim  orbs  are  sharp  enough, 
those  cloudless  blue  eyes  looking  straight  into 
yours,  and  hear  the  laugh  which  only  means 
the  best  of  all  possible  jokes,  "  I  am  so  happy!" 


154       TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW 

Then  go  to  your  stupid  desk,  and  calculate 
algebraically  what  amount  of  classics  and 
mathematics  are  equivalent  to  that  ecstasy  of 
young  existence,  wherein 

"  Simply  to  feel  that  we  breathe,  that  we  live, 
Is  worth  the  best  joy  which  life  elsewhere  can  give." 

The  pagan  Irish  believed  in  a  paradise  for 
the  virtuous  dead,  and  called  it  "  Innis-na- 
n'Oge,"  the  "  Island  of  the  Young."  We  all 
live  there  the  first  dozen  years  of  mortality; 
and,  unless  we  prove  unusually  excellent,  I  fear 
it  may  be  long  before  we  arrive  at  a  better 
place. 

But  hitherto  we  have  taken  for  granted  that 
the  little  prisoners  of  the  school-room  are  all 
sure  to  live  and  come  into  their  fortunes  of 
erudition,  earned  with  so  many  tear-blisters  on 
their  lesson-books.  Of  course,  however,  this  is 
far  from  being  the  true  state  of  the  case. 
The  poor  little  child,  whose  happiness  —  inno- 
cent, certain,  and  immediate  happiness  —  is 
bartered  so  ruthlessly  for  the  remote  and  con- 
tingent benefit  of  his  later  years,  may  very 
probably  never  see  those  years  at  all ;  nay,  in 
a  fixed  average  number  of  cases,  it  is  abso- 
lutely certain  that  he  will  not  grow  into  a 
man.  Can  anything  be  much  more  sad  than 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW       155 

such  an  abortive  sacrifice  ?  Who  does  not 
remember  Walter  Scott's  "  Pet  Marjory,"  with 
her  infantine  delight  in  her  visits  to  the  coun- 
try, and  the  calves  and  the  geese,  and  the 
"  bubbly-jocks  " ;  and  how  she  wrote  down  in 
her  private  journal  that  she  was  learning  the 
multiplication  table,  and  that  seven  times  seven 
was  a  "  divlish  thing,"  and  quite  impossible 
to  acquire ;  and  how,  when  somehow  at  last 
even  the  still  more  dreadful  "eight  times  eight" 
had  been  lodged  in  her  poor  little  brains,  there 
came  a  day  when  she  cried  suddenly  to  her 
mother,  "  Oh,  my  head !  my  head  ! "  and  then 
in  a  few  brief  hours  there  was  an  end  of  les- 
sons and  their  advantages  for  Marjory  for- 
ever ? 

And  yet  again,  when  some  ardent  lad  has 
passed  through  school  and  college,  foregoing 
all  the  sports  of  his  age,  and  receiving  prizes 
and  honors,  till  he  stands  a  first-class  man  of 
Oxford  or  Cambridge,  and  his  father's  sacri- 
fices and  his  mother's  yearnings  and  all  his 
own  gallant  and  self-denying  labors  seem  on 
the  point  of  reaping  their  reward,  how  often 
does  it  come  to  pass  that  with  the  close  of 
the  struggle  come  the  reaction,  the  decline, 
the  hasty  journey  abroad,  the  hoping  against 
hope,  and  then  —  death  ! 


156      TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW 

Thirdly.  There  is  the  waste  of  Eyesight  in 
education.  It  is  understood,  when  we  see  a 
young  man  with  the  "light  of  the  body" 
dimmed  behind  glass  spectacles,  that  he  has 
hurt  his  eyes  by  poring  over  books.  A  farmer, 
a  sportsman,  or  a  soldier,  purblind  at  twenty- 
five  or  thirty,  is  a  rare  thing  to  see.  It  is  the 
scholar,  lawyer,  or  divine  who  has  paid  the 
penalty  of  seeing  God's  beautiful  world  ever- 
more through  those  abominable  bits  of  glass. 
And  for  what  mighty  advantage?  Again  I 
say,  it  ought  to  be  something  excessively  val- 
uable for  which  a  man  will  exchange  the  apple 
of  his  eye.  Suppose  Bell  Taylor  were  to  ask  a 
blind  gentleman  a  fee  of  a  thousand  pounds  to 
give  him  his  sight  as  he  has  given  it  to  more 
than  one  born  blind.  The  blind  man,  if  he 
possessed  the  money,  would  doubtless  pour  it 
out  like  water  to  obtain  the  priceless  boon  of 
vision.  And  this  is  the  gift  which  our  boys 
exchange  for  a  moderate  acquaintance  with 
the  Greek  language,  to  be  forgotten  in  a  few 
years  after  they  leave  school ! 

Half  the  vast  Teutonic  nation  beholds  the 
universe  from  behind  spectacles;  owing,  no 
doubt,  to  their  vaunted  compulsory  education, 
aided  by  their  truculent  black  types.  And  we 
open-eyed  Britons  are  exhorted,  forsooth,  to 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW      157 

admire  and   follow  in  the  steps  of  those  bar- 
nacled Prussians ! 

Such  are  three  of  the  most  obvious  losses 
to  be  placed  in  the  scale  against  the  gains 
of  Knowledge, —  the  loss  to  many  of  bodily 
health;  to  all  of  the  unshackled  freedom  of 
childhood ;  and  to  not  a  few  of  perfect  eye- 
sight. 

But  we  cannot  suppose  it  was'  to  any  of 
these  things  Solomon  alluded  when  he  linked 
Knowledge  and  Sorrow  in  one  category.  It  is 
not  likely  that  those  studies  of  his,  about  the 
hyssop  and  the  cedar,  injured  his  health;  nor 
that  the  royal  sage  sat  on  his  famous  ivory 
throne  to  receive  the  Queen  of  Sheba  in  a 
pair  of  spectacles.  As  to  the  loss  of  the  pleas- 
ures of  childhood,  his  well-known  opinion  of 
the  value  of  the  Rod  (to  the  wisdom  of  which 
the  subsequent  conduct  of  his  son  Rehoboam 
afforded  an  illustration)  makes  it  probable 
that  he  would  have  approved  of  the  torture  of 
infants  through  the  instrumentality  of  lessons. 
Knowledge  and  Sorrow  had,  no  doubt,  some 
other  connection  in  his  mind ;  and  that  con- 
nection we  have  still  to  mark. 

It  is  a  paradox  only  too  readily  verified  that 
the  mind  as  well  as  the  body  suffers  in  more 
ways  than  one  from  the  acquirement  of  book 


158       TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW 

knowledge.  In  the  first  place,  the  Memory, 
laden  with  an  enormous  mass  of  facts,  and 
accustomed  to  shift  the  burden  of  carrying 
them  to  written  notes  and  similar  devices, 
loses  much  of  its  natural  tenacity.  The  igno- 
rant clodhopper  always  remembers  the  parish 
chronicles  better  than  the  scholarly  parson. 
The  old  family  servant,  who  is  strongly  sus- 
pected of  not  knowing  how  to  write  and  whose 
spectacles  are  never  forthcoming  when  there 
is  any  necessity  to  read,  is  the  living  annalist 
of  the  house,  and  was  never  yet  known  to  for- 
get an  order,  except  now  and  then  on  purpose. 
Not  only  are  the  interests,  and  consequently 
the  attention  and  retentive  powers,  of  illiterate 
persons  monopolized  by  the  practical  concerns 
of  life  and  the  tales  of  the  past  which  may 
have  reached  their  ears,  but  they  have  actually 
clearer  heads,  less  encumbered  by  a  multi- 
tude of  irrelevant  ideas,  and  can  recall  what- 
ever they  need,  at  a  moment's  notice,  without 
tumbling  over  a  whole  lumber-room  full  of 
rubbish  to  get  at  it.  The  old  Rabbinical  sys- 
tem of  schooling,  which  mainly  consisted  in 
the  committal  to  memory  of  innumerable 
aphorisms  and  dicta  of  sages  and  prophets, 
possessed  this  enormous  advantage  over  mod- 
ern instruction, —  that  whatever  a  man  had  so 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW       159 

learned  he  possessed  at  his  fingers'  ends,  ready 
for  instant  use  in  every  argument.  But,  as 
half  the  value  of  knowledge  in  practical  life 
depends  on  the  rapidity  with  which  it  can  be 
brought  to  bear  at  a  given  moment  on  the 
point  of  issue,  and  as  a  ready-witted  man  will 
not  merely  outshine  in  discussion  his  slow- 
brained  antagonist,  but  forestall  and  outrun 
him  in  every  way,  save  in  the  labors  of  the 
library,  it  follows  that  to  sacrifice  the  ready 
money  of  the  mind  for  paper  hard  to  negotiate 
is  extremely  bad  economy.  iMere  book-learn- 
ing, instead  of  rendering  the  memory  more 
strong  and  agile,  accustoms  it  to  hobble  on 
crutches. 

Other  mental  powers  suffer  even  more  than 
the  memory  by  the  introduction  of  books. 
That  method  which  we  familiarly  call  the 
"Rule  of  Thumb"— that  is,  the  method  of 
the  Artist — is  soon  lost  when  there  come  to 
be  treatises  and  tables  of  calculation  to  form, 
instead,  the  Method  of  the  Mechanic.  The 
boats  of  Greece  are  to  this  day  sculptured 
rather  than  wrought  by  the  shipwrights,  even 
as  the  old  architects  cut  their  marble  archi- 
traves by  the  eye  of  genius  trained  to  beauty 
and  symmetry,  not  by  the  foot-rule  of  prece- 
dent and  book-lore.  The  wondrous  richness 


160       TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW 

and  harmony  of  coloring  of  Chinese  and  In- 
dian and  Turkish  stuffs  and  carpets  and  por- 
celain are  similarly  the  result,  not  of  any  rules 
to  be  reduced  to  formulae,  but  of  taste  unfet- 
tered by  pattern-books,  unwarped  by  Schools 
of  Art  Manufacture,  bequeathed  through  long 
generations,  each  acquainted  intimately  with 
the  aforesaid  "rule  of  thumb." 

For  the  Reasoning  powers,  the  noblest  in 
the  scale  of  human  faculties,  it  may  be  fairly 
doubted  whether  the  modern  increase  of 
Knowledge  has  done  much  to  strengthen  them, 
when  we  find  ourselves  still  unprotected  by 
common  sense  against  such  absurdities  as  those 
which  find  currency  amongst  us.  Men  are 
treated  amongst  us  like  fowls,  crammed  to  the 
crop  with  facts,  facts,  facts,  till  their  digestion 
of  them  is  impaired. 

As  to  the  Imagination,  books  are  like  the 
stepping-stones  whereon  fancy  trips  across  an 
otherwise  impassable  river  to  gather  flowers  on 
the  further  bank.  But  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  the  reading  eye  ever  really  does  the 
same  work  as  the  hearing  ear.  The  voice  of 
tradition  bears,  as  no  book  can  do,  the  burden 
of  the  feelings  of  generations.  A  ballad 
learned  orally  from  our  mother's  lips  seems  to 
have  far  other  meaning  when  we  recall  it,  per- 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW      l6l 

chance  long  years  after  that  sweet  voice  has 
been  silent,  than  the  stanzas  we  perused  yes- 
terday through  our  spectacles  in  a  volume 
freshly  reviewed  in  the  Times. 

Such  are  the  somewhat  dubious  results  of 
book-lore  on  the  faculties  exercised  in  its  ac- 
quisition. It  is  almost  needless  to  remark 
that  there  are  also  certain  positive  vices  fre- 
quently engendered  by  the  same  pursuit. 
Bacon's  noble  apophthegm,  that  "a  little 
knowledge  leads  to  atheism,  but  a  great  deal 
brings  us  back  to  God,"  needs  for  commentary 
that  "a  little  "must  be  taken  to  signify  what 
many  people  think  "  much."  Read  in  such  a 
sense,  it  applies  not  only  to  religious  faith,  but 
to  faith  in  everything,  and  most  particularly  to 
faith  in  Knowledge  itself.  Nobody  despises 
books  so  much  as  those  who  have  read  many 
of  them,  except  those  still  more  hopeless  infi- 
dels who  have  written  them.  Watch  the  very 
treatment  given  to  his  library  by  a  bookworm. 
Note  how  the  volumes  are  knocked  about,  and 
left  on  chairs,  and  scribbled  over  with  ill-penned 
notes,  and  ruthlessly  dog's-eared  and  turned 
down  on  their  faces  on  inky  tables,  and  sat 
upon  in  damp  grass  under  a  tree!  Contrast 
this  behavior  towards  them  with  the  respect- 
ful demeanor  of  unlettered  mortals,  who  range 


1 62  TO    KNOW,    OR    NOT    TO    KNOW 

the  precious  and  well-dusted  tomes  like  sol- 
diers on  drill  on  their  spruce  shelves;  nobody 
pushed  back  out  of  the  line,  nobody  tumbling 
sideways  against  his  neighbor,  nobody  stand- 
ing on  his  head!  History  is  not  jumbled 
ignominiously  with  romance ;  moral  treatises 
are  not  made  sandwiches  of  (as  we  have  be- 
held) between  the  yellow  covers  of  Zola ;  and 
"  Sunday  books  "  have  a  prominent  pew  all  to 
themselves,  where  they  are  not  rubbed  against 
by  either  profane  wit  or  worldly  wisdom. 
Such  is  the  different  appreciation  of  literature 
by  those  to  whom  it  is  very  familiar  and  by 
those  to  whom  it  preserves  still  a  little  of  the 
proverbial  magnificence  of  all  unknown  things. 
We  used  to  hear,  some  years  ago,  so  much 
about  the  Pride  of  Learning  that  it  would  be 
a  commonplace  to  allude  to  that  fault  among 
the  contingent  disadvantages  of  study.  One 
of  the  Fathers  describes  how  he  was  flogged 
by  an  angel  for  his  predilection  for  Cicero, — 
an  anecdote  which  must  have  made  many  a 
school-boy,  innocent  of  any  such  error,  feel  that 
life  was  only  a  dilemma  between  the  rods  of 
terrestrial  and  celestial  pedagogues.  But  it  is 
obvious  that  the  saint  had  in  his  mind  a  sense 
that  the  reading  of  "Tusculan  Disputations" 
had  set  him  up  —  saint  though  he  was  —  above 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW       163 

the  proper  spirit  of  implicit  docility  and  unqual- 
ified admiration  for  more  sacred  instructions. 
The  critical  spirit,  which  is  the  inevitable 
accompaniment  of  high  erudition,  is  obviously 
a  good  way  off  from  that  ovine  frame  of  mind 
which  divines,  in  all  ages,  have  extolled  as  the 
proper  attitude  for  their  flocks.  Nay,  in  a 
truer  and  better  sense  than  that  of  the  open- 
mouthed  credulity  so  idly  inculcated,  it  must 
be  owned  that,  short  of  that  really  great  knowl- 
edge of  which  Bacon  spoke  and  which  allies 
itself  with  the  infinite  wisdom  of  love  and 
faith,  there  are  few  things  more  hurtful  to  a 
man  than  to  be  aware  that  he  knows  a  great 
deal  more  than  those  about  him.  The  main 
difference  between  what  are  called  self-made 
men  and  those  who  have  been  educated  in 
the  upper  grades  is  that  the  former,  from  their 
isolation,  have  a  constant  sense  of  their  own 
knowledge,  as  if  it  were  a  Sunday  coat,  while 
the  others  wear  it  easily  as  their  natural  attire. 
The  best  thing  which  could  happen  to  a 
village  Crichton  would  be  to  be  mercilessly 
snubbed  by  an  Oxford  don.  The  days  when 
women  were  "  Precieuses "  and  "  Blue  Stock- 
ings "  were  those  in  which  it  was  a  species  of 
miraculous  Assumption  of  Virgins  when  they 
were  lifted  into  the  heaven  of  Latin  Grammar. 


164      TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW 

But,  passing  over  the  injury  to  healthy  eye- 
sight and  mental  vigor  contingent  on  learning, 
and  the  moral  faults  sometimes  engendered 
thereby,  I  proceed  to  ask  another  question. 
What  is  the  ethical  value  of  the  Knowledge 
bought  at  such  a  price,  and  heaped  together 
by  mankind  during  the  thirty  centuries  since 
Solomon  uttered  his  warning?  How  has  it 
contributed  to  their  moral  welfare  ? 

Surely  it  is  true  that  even  as  Art  too  often 
gilds  sensuality,  and  renders  it  attractive  to 
souls  otherwise  above  its  influence,  so  Knowl- 
edge must  open  new  roads  to  temptation,  and 
take  off  from  sin  that  strangeness  and  horror 
which  is  one  of  the  best  safeguards  of  the 
soul.  The  old  jest  of  the  confessor,  who 
asked  the  penitent  whether  he  did  such  and 
such  dishonest  tricks,  and  received  the  reply, 
"  No,  Father ;  but  I  will  do  them  next  time," 
was  only  a  fable  of  one  form  of  the  mischief 
of  knowledge;  and  that  not  the  most  fatal 
form  either.  To  know  how  to  do  wrong  is 
one  small  step  towards  doing  it.  To  know 
that  scores  and  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
people,  in  all  lands  and  ages,  have  done  the 
same  wrong,  is  a  far  larger  encouragement 
to  the  timidity  of  guilt.  Not  only  is  it  dan- 
gerous to  know  that  there  is  a  descent  to 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW       165 

Avernus,  but  specially  dangerous  to  know 
that  it  is  easy  and  well  trodden.  Dr.  Watts 
was  injudicious,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  to  betray 
to  children  that  the  way  to  perdition  is  a 

"  Broad  road,  where  thousands  go," 

which,  moreover, 

"  Lies  near,  and  opens  fair." 

Better  let  people  suppose  that  it  has  become 
quite  grass-grown  and  impassable. 

Many  offences,  such  as  drunkenness,  de- 
bauchery, swindling,  adulteration,  and  false 
weights,  are  diseases  propagated,  chiefly,  if 
not  solely,  like  small-pox  by  direct  infection 
conveyed  in  the  knowledge  that  A,  B,  C,  and 
D  do  the  same  things.  David  was  not  so 
far  wrong  to  be  angry;  and  divines  need  not 
be  so  anxious  to  excuse  him  for  being  so, 
when  he  saw  the  "  wicked  "  flourishing  "  like 
green  bay-trees."  Such  sights  are,  to  the  last 
degree,  trying  and  demoralizing. 

In  a  yet  larger  and  sadder  sense,  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  evil  of  the  world,  of  the  baseness, 
pollution,  cruelty,  which  have  stained  the 
earth  from  the  earliest  age  till  this  hour,  is 
truly  a  knowledge  fraught  with  dread  and  woe. 
He  who  can  walk  over  the  carnage  field  of 
history  and  behold  the  agonies  of  the  wounded 


1 66  TO    KNOW,    OR    NOT   TO    KNOW 

and  the  fallen,  the  mutilations  and  hideous 
ruin  of  what  was  meant  to  be  such  beautiful 
humanity, —  he  who  can  see  all  this,  ay,  or  but 
a  corner  of  that  awful  Aceldama,  and  yet 
retain  his  unwavering  faith  in  the  final  issue 
of  the  strife,  and  his  satisfaction  that  it  has 
been  permitted  to  human  free  will,  must  be 
a  man  of  far  other  strength  than  he  who 
judges  of  the  universe  from  the  peaceful  pros- 
perity of  his  parish,  and  believes  that  the 
worst  of  ills  is  symbolized  by  the  stones  under 
which  "  the  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet 
sleep."  Almost  every  form  of  knowledge  is 
some  such  trial  of  faith.  Look  at  zoology 
and  palaeontology.  What  revelations  of  pain 
and  death  in  each  hideous  artifice  of  jagged 
tooth,  and  ravening  beak,  and  cruel  claw! 
What  mysterious  laws  of  insect  and  fungus 
life  developed  within  higher  organisms,  to 
whom  their  presence  is  torture  !  What  savage 
scenes  of  pitiless  strife  in  the  whole  vast  strug- 
gle for  existence  of  every  beast  and  bird,  every 
fish  and  reptile !  Turn  to  ethnology,  and 
gather  up  the  facts  of  life  of  all  the  barbarian 
tribes  of  Africa  and  Polynesia;  of  the  count- 
less myriads  of  their  progenitors;  and  of  those 
who  dwelt  in  Europe  and  Asia  in  bygone  aeons 
of  prehistoric  time.  Is  not  the  story  of  these 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW       167 

squalid,  half-human,  miserable  creatures  full 
of  woe?  Our  fathers  dreamed  of  a  Paradise 
and  of  a  primeval  couple  dwelling  there  in 
perfect  peace  and  innocence.  We  have  at 
last  so  eaten  of  the  Tree  of  Knowledge  that 
we  have  been  driven  out  of  even  the  ideal 
Eden ;  and  instead  thereof  we  behold  the 
earliest  parents  of  our  race,  dwarf  and  hirsute, 
shivering  and  famished,  contending  with  mam- 
moths in  a  desert  world,  and  stung  and  goaded 
by  want  and  pain  along  every  step  in  the  first 
advance  from  the  bestiality  of  the  baboon  into 
the  civilization  of  a  man. 

Turn  to  astronomy,  and  we  peer,  dazed  and 
sick,  into  the  abysses  of  time  and  space  opened 
beneath  us;  bottomless  abysses  where  no  plum- 
met can  sound,  and  all  our  toylike  measures 
of  thousands  of  ages  and  millions  of  miles  drop 
useless  from  our  hands.  Can  any  thought  be 
more  tremendous  than  the  question,  What 
are  we  in  this  immensity?  We  had  fondly 
fancied  we  were  Creation's  last  and  greatest 
work,  the  crown  and  glory  of  the  universe,  and 
that  our  world  was  the  central  stage  for  the 
drama  of  God.  Where  are  we  now?  When 
the  "stars  fall  from  heaven,"  will  they  "fall 
on  the  earth  even  as  a  fig-tree  casteth  her 
untimely  figs  "  ?  Nay,  rather  will  one  of  the 


1 68  TO    KNOW,    OR    NOT    TO    KNOW 

heavenly  host  so  much  as  notice  when  our 
little  world,  charged  with  all  the  hopes  of 
man,  bursts  like  a  bubble,  and  falls  in  the 
foam  of  a  meteor  shower,  illumining  for  a 
single  night  some  planet  calmly  rolling  on  its 
way? 

Let  us  pass  from  the  outer  into  the  inner 
realm,  and  glance  at  the  developments  of 
human  thought.  The  knowledge  of  Philoso- 
phy, properly  so  called,  from  Pythagoras  and 
Plato  to  Kant  and  Spencer, —  is  it  a  Knowl- 
edge the  increase  of  which  is  wholly  without 
"sorrow"?  Not  the  most  pathetic  poem  in 
literature  seems  to  me  half  so  sad  as  Lewes's 
History  of  Philosophy.  Those  endless  wan- 
derings amid  the  labyrinths  of  Being  and 
Knowing,  Substance  and  Phenomenon,  Nomi- 
nalism and  Realism,  which,  to  most  men,  seem 
like  a  troubled  "dream  within  a  dream,"  to 
him  who  has  taken  the  pains  to  understand 
them  rather  appear  like  the  wanderings  of  the 
wretch  lost  in  the  catacombs.  He  roams 
hither  and  thither,  and  feels  feebly  along  the 
walls,  and  stumbles  in  the  dark,  finding  him- 
self in  a  passage  which  has  no  outlet,  and 
turns  back  to  seek  another  way  of  escape,  and 
grasps  at  something  he  deems  may  contain  a 
clew  to  the  far  distant  daylight,  and,  lo !  it  is 


TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW       169 

but  an  urn  filled  with  dust  and    dead  men's 
bones. 

Faust  is  the  true  type  of  the  student  of 
metaphysics  when  he  marks  the  skull's  "  spec- 
tral smile  " :  — 

"  Saith  it  not  that  thy  brain,  like  mine, 
Still  loved  and  sought  the  beautiful, 
Loved  truth  for  its  own  sake,  and  sought, 
Regardless  of  aught  else  the  while, 
Like  mine  the  light  of  cloudless  day, 
And  in  unsatisfying  thought 
By  twilight  glimmers  led  astray, 
Like  mine,  at  length,  sank  overwrought  ?  " 

There  may  be  truth  within  our  reach.  Some 
of  us  deem  we  have  found  it  in  youth,  and, 
passing  out  of  the  metaphysic  stage  of  thought, 
use  our  philosophy  as  a  scaffolding  wherewith 
to  build  the  solid  edifice  of  life,  gradually  heed- 
ing less  and  less  how  that  scaffolding  may 
prove  rotten  or  ill-jointed.  But,  even  in  such 
a  case,  the  knowledge  of  all  that  has  been,  and 
is  not,  in  the  world  of  man's  highest  thought 
is  a  sorrowful  one.  As  we  wander  on  from 
one  system  to  another,  we  feel  as  if  we  were 
but  numbering  the  gallant  ships  with  keels 
intended  to  cut  such  deep  waters,  and  top- 
masts made  to  bear  flags  so  brave,  which  lie 
wrecked  and  broken  into  drift-wood  along  the 
shore  of  the  enchanted  Loadstone  Isle. 


I7O      TO  KNOW,  OR  NOT  TO  KNOW 

What  is,  then,  the  conclusion  of  our  long 
pleading  ?  Knowledge  is  acquired  at  the  cost 
of  a  certain  measure  of  health,  and  eyesight, 
and  youthful  joy.  Knowledge  involves  the 
deterioration  of  some  faculties  as  well  as  the 
strengthening  of  others.  Knowledge  engen- 
ders sundry  moral  faults.  In  the  realms  of 
history,  of  physical  and  of  mental  science,  the 
survey  of  things  obtained  through  knowledge 
is  full  of  sadness  and  solemnity.  The  tele- 
scope which  has  revealed  to  us  a  thousand 
galaxies  of  suns  has  failed  to  show  us  the 
Heaven  which  we  once  believed  was  close 
overhead. 

Is  then  the  pursuit  of  Knowledge,  after  all, 
truly  a  delusion,  the  worst  and  weariest  of 
human  mistakes,  a  thing  to  which  we  are 
driven  by  our  necessities  on  one  hand  and 
lured  by  our  thirst  for  it  on  the  other,  but 
which,  nevertheless,  like  the  martyrs'  cup  of 
salt  water,  only  burns  our  lips  with  its  bitter 
brine  ? 

Not  so!  a  thousand  times,  no!  Knowledge, 
like  Virtue,  is  not  good  because  it  is  useful,  but 
useful  because  it  is  good.  It  is  useful  contin- 
gently, and  good  essentially.  The  joy  of  it  is 
simple,  and  not  only  needs  not  to  be  supple- 
mented by  accessory  advantages,  but  is  well 


TO    KNOW,    OR   NOT   TO    KNOW 

worth  the  forfeit  of  many  advantages  to 
obtain.  The  most  miserable  wretch  we  can 
imagine  is  the  ignorant  convict  locked  up  in 
a  solitary  cell,  with  nothing  to  employ  his 
thoughts  but  unattainable  vice  and  frustrated 
crime,  whereon  his  stupid  judges  leave  him  to 
ruminate  as  if  such  poison  were  moral  medi- 
cine to  heal  the  diseases  of  his  soul.  And, 
on  the  other  hand,  one  of  the  happiest  beings 
we  can  imagine  is  the  man  at  the  opposite  end 
of  the  intellectual  scale,  who  lives  in  the  free 
acquirement  of  noble  knowledge.  What  is 
any  "increase  of  sorrow"  incurred  thereby, 
compared  to  the  joy  of  it  ?  To  build  Memory 
like  a  gallery  hung  round  with  all  the  loveliest 
scenes  of  nature  and  all  the  masterpieces  of 
art ;  to  make  the  divine  chorus  of  the  poets 
sing  for  us  their  choicest  strains  whenever  we 
beckon  them  from  their  cells;  to  talk  famil- 
iarly, as  if  they  were  our  living  friends,  with 
the  best  and  wisest  men  who  have  ever  lived 
on  earth,  and  link  our  arms  in  theirs  in  the 
never-withering  groves  of  an  eternal  Academe, 
—  this  is  to  burst  the  bounds  of  space  and 
bring  the  ages  together,  and  lift  ourselves  out 
of  the  sordid  dust  to  sit  at  the  banquet  of 
heroes  and  of  gods. 


ESSAY  VI. 

THE  TOWN  MOUSE  AND  THE 
COUNTRY  MOUSE. 


THE  TOWN  MOUSE  AND  THE 
COUNTRY  MOUSE. 


WHETHER  it  is  best  to  live  rapidly  or  slowly; 
whether  the  "  twenty  years  of  Europe  "  be  pref- 
erable to  the  "  cycle  of  Cathay " ;  and  what 
is  to  be  said  on  behalf  of  each  of  the  two 
modes  of  existence, —  supposing  that  we  have 
the  choice  between  them, —  seem  to  be  ques- 
tions not  unworthy  of  a  little  consideration. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  the  common  impulse 
to  be  "  in  among  the  throngs  of  men,"  and  to 
cram  a  month's  ideas  and  sensations  into  a 
day,  may  be  the  truest  guide  to  happiness; 
indeed,  it  is  rather  sorrowful  to  doubt  that  it 
should  be  so,  considering  how  every  successive 
census  shows  the  growth  of  the  urban  over  the 
rural  populations,  and  how  strongly  the  mag- 
nets of  the  great  cities  seem  destined  in  future 
years  to  draw  into  them  all  the  loose  attract- 
able human  matter  in  each  country.  Never, 
theless,  it  must  be  admitted  to  be  also  possible 


1 76          TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY   MOUSE 

that,  like  the  taste  for  tobacco  or  alcohol  or 
opium,  the  taste  for  town  life  may  be  an 
appetite  the  indulgence  of  which  is  deleteri- 
ous, and  that  our  gains  of  enjoyment  thereby 
obtained  may  be  practically  outbalanced  by 
the  loss  of  pleasures  which  slip  away  mean- 
while unperceived.  It  would  be  satisfactory, 
once  for  all,  to  feel  assured  that  in  choosing 
either  town  or  country  life  (when  we  have  the 
choice),  we  not  only  follow  immediate  inclina- 
tion, but  make  deliberate  selection  of  that 
which  must  necessarily  be  the  higher  and 
happier  kind  of  life,  on  which,  when  the  time 
comes  for  saying  good-night,  we  shall  look 
back  without  the  miserable  regret  that  we 
have  permitted  the  nobler  duties  and  the 
sweeter  joys  to  escape  us,  while  we  have  spent 
our  years  in  grasping  at  shadows  and  vanities. 
The  dog  with  the  bone  in  his  mouth,  who 
drops  it  to  catch  the  bone  in  the  water,  is  a 
terrible  warning  to  all  mankind.  But  which 
is  the  real  bone,  and  which  is  only  the 
reflection  ?  The  question  is  not  easily  an- 
swered. 

Let  us  premise  that  it  is  of  English  country 
life  and  town  life  alone  I  mean  to  speak. 
Foreigners  —  Frenchmen,  for  example  —  who 
live  in  the  country  seem  always  to  do  so 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   177 

under  protest,  and  to  wish  to  convey  to  the 
traveller  that,  like  the  patriarch,  they  are  only 
strangers  and  sojourners  in  the  rural  districts, 
seeking  a  better  country,  even  a  Parisian. 
Moliere's  Comtesse  d'Escarbagnas,  who  has 
been  six  weeks  in  the  capital  once  in  her  life, 
and  who  indignantly  asks  her  visitor,  "  Me 
prenez-vous  pour  une  provinciate,  Madame  ?  " 
is  the  type  of  them  all.  Of  course,  country 
life  taken  thus  as  a  temporary  and  rather  dis- 
graceful banishment  can  never  display  its  true 
features  or  produce  its  proper  quantum  of 
enjoyment. 

And  again,  among  English  forms  of  coun- 
try life,  it  is  life  in  bona  fide  rural  districts 
which  we  must  take  for  our  type.  All  round 
London  there  now  exists  a  sort  of  intellectual 
cordon,  extending  from  twenty  to  thirty  miles 
into  Kent  and  Surrey,  and  about  ten  miles 
into  Herts  and  Essex.  Professor  Nichols 
might  have  mapped  it  as  he  did  our  starry 
cluster,  by  jotting  down  every  house  on  the 
boundary  inhabited  by  politicians,  literary  men, 
and  artists,  and  then  running  a  line  all  round 
from  one  to  another.  Within  this  circumfer- 
ence (of  course,  extending  year  by  year),  the 
ideas,  habits,  and  conversation  of  the  inhabi- 
tants are  purely  Londonesque.  The  habitue 


178         TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

of  London  dinner-parties  finds  himself  per- 
fectly at  home  at  every  table  where  he  sits 
down,  and  may  take  it  for  granted  that  his 
hosts  and  their  guests  will  all  know  the  same 
familiar  characters,  the  same  anecdotes  of  the 
season,  the  books,  the  operas,  the  exhibitions ; 
and,  much  more  than  all  this,  will  possess  the 
indescribable  easy  London  manner  of  lightly 
tripping  over  commonplace  subjects,  and  seri- 
ously discussing  only  really  interesting  ones, 
which  is  the  art  of  conversational  perspective. 
Beyond  the  invisible  mental  London  Wall 
which  we  have  described,  the  wanderer  seems 
suddenly  to  behold  another  intellectual  realm. 
As  the  author  of  the  "  Night  Thoughts "  de- 
scribes a  rather  more  startling  experience,  he 
stands  on  the  last  battlement,  which 

"  Looks  o'er  the  vale  of  non-existence,"  — 

at  the  end  of  all  things  wherewith  he  is  famil- 
iar. He  has,  in  short,  penetrated  into  the 
Rural  Districts  of  the  Mind,  where  men's 
ideas  have  hedges  and  ditches  no  less  than 
their  fields. 

And  once  again  we  must  take  English  coun- 
try life  in  its  most  elevated  and  perfect  form, 
—  that  of  the  hereditary  landed  gentry, —  to 
contrast  it  most  advantageously  with  the  life 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE       179 

of  towns.  To  understand  and  enjoy  country 
life  as  it  may  be  enjoyed,  a  man  should  not 
only  live  in  one  of  those  "  Stately  Homes  of 
England,"  of  which  Mrs.  Hemans  was  so 
enamoured,  but  be  born  and  have  spent  his 
youth  in  such  a  house,  built  by  his  fathers  in 
long  past  generations.  A  wealthy  merchant  or 
a  great  lawyer  who  buys  in  his  declining  years 
the  country  seat  of  some  fallen  family,  to 
enjoy  therein  the  honorable  fruits  of  his  labors 
may  probably  be  a  much  more  intelligent  per- 
son than  the  neighboring  squire,  whose  acres 
have  descended  to  him  depuis  que  le  monde  est 
monde.  But  he  can  no  more  make  himself 
into  a  country  gentleman,  and  acquire  the 
tastes  and  ideas  of  one,  or  learn  to  understand 
from  the  inside  the  loves  and  hates,  pleasures 
and  prejudices  of  squiredom,  than  he  can  ac- 
quire the  dolce favella  Toscana  by  buying  him- 
self a  Florentine  barony. 

And,  lastly,  our  typical  country  life  must 
neither  be  that  of  people  so  great  and  wealthy 
as  to  be  called  frequently  by  political  interests 
up  to  Parliament,  and  who  possess  two  or 
more  great  estates  (a  man  can  no  more  have 
two  homes  than  he  can  have  two  heads),  nor 
yet  that  of  people  in  embarrassed  and  narrow 
circumstances.  The  genuine  squire  is  never 


l8o         TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

rich  in  the  sense  in  which  great  merchants 
and  manufacturers  are  rich ;  for,  however  many 
acres  he  may  possess,  it  is  tolerably  certain 
that  the  claims  on  them  will  be  quite  in  pro- 
portion to  their  extent.  There  is,  in  fact,  a 
kind  of  money  which  never  comes  out  of  land ; 
a  certain  freedom  in  the  disposal  of  large  sums 
quite  unknown  among  the  landed  gentry,  at 
least  in  these  days.  But,  if  not  possessed  of 
a  heavy  balance  at  their  bankers,  the  country 
family  must  have  the  wherewithal  for  the 
young  men  to  shoot  and  hunt  and  fish,  and 
for  the  girls  to  ride  or  amuse  themselves 
with  garden  and  pleasure-grounds  according  to 
taste.  All  these  things,  being  elements  of  the 
typical  English  country  life,  must  be  assumed 
as  at  least  attainable  at  will  by  our  "  Coun- 
try Mouse"  if  he  is  not  to  be  put  altogether 
out  of  countenance  by  his  brother  of  the 
town. 

As  for  the  Town  Mouse,  he  need  not  be  rich, 
nor  is  it  more  than  a  trifling  advantage  to  him 
(felt  chiefly  at  the  outset  of  his  career)  that  his 
father  or  grandfather  should  have  occupied  the 
same  social  position  as  himself.  All  that  is 
needed  is  that,  in  the  case  of  a  man,  he  should 
belong  to  a  good  club,  and  go  out  often  to  din- 
ner ;  and,  in  the  case  of  a  lady,  that  she  should 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   l8l 

have  from  one  hundred  to  five  hundred  people 
on  her  visiting  list.  Either  of  these  fortunate 
persons  may,  without  let  or  hindrance,  experi- 
ence pretty  nearly  all  the  intellectual  and 
moral  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  living 
in  a  town,  provided  their  place  of  abode  be 
London.  Over  every  other  city  in  the  empire 
there  steals  some  breath  of  country  air,  if  it 
be  small ;  or,  if  it  be  large,  its  social  character 
is  so  far  modified  by  special  commercial,  indus- 
trial, or  ecclesiastical  conditions  that  its  influ- 
ence cannot  be  held  to  be  merely  that  of  a 
town  pur  et  simple ;  nor  are  the  people  who 
come  out  of  it  properly  typically  towny,  but 
rather  commercial-towny,  manufacturing-towny, 
or  cathedral-towny,  as  the  case  may  be. 

Turn  we  now  from  these  preliminaries  to 
the  characteristics  of  the  Town  life  and  the 
Country  life,  each  in  its  own  most  perfect 
English  form.  Let  us  see  first  what  is  to  be 
said  for  each,  and  then  strike  our  balance. 
Very  briefly  we  may  dismiss  the  commonly 
recognized  external  features  of  both,  and  pass 
as  rapidly  as  possible  to  the  more  subtle  ones, 
which  have  scarcely  perhaps  been  noted  as 
carefully  as  their  importance  as  items  in  the 
sum  of  happiness  will  warrant. 


1 82          TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 


TOWN  MOUSE  loquitur. 

"I  confess  I  love  London.  It  is  a  confes- 
sion, of  course,  for  everybody  who  lives  in  the 
country  seems  to  think  there  is  a  particular 
virtue  in  doing  so,  resembling  the  cognate 
merit  of  early  rising.  Even  that  charming 
town  poet,  Mr.  Locker,  practically  admits  the 
same  when  he  says, — 

*  I  hope  I'm  fond  of  much  that's  good, 
As  well  as  much  that's  gay ; 
I'd  like  the  country  if  I  could, 
I  like  the  Park  in  May.' 

"  The  truth  is  that  one  wants  to  live,  not  to 
vegetate ;  to  do  as  much  good,  either  to  our- 
selves or  other  people,  as  time  permits ;  to 
receive  and  give  impressions  ;  to  feel,  to  act, 
to  be  as  much  as  possible  in  the  few  brief  years 
of  mortal  existence ;  and  this  concentrated 
Life  can  be  lived  in  London  as  nowhere  else. 
If  a  man  have  any  ambition,  here  it  may  best 
be  pursued.  If  he  desire  to  contend  for  any 
truth  or  any  justice,  here  is  his  proper  battle- 
field. If  he  love  pleasure,  here  are  fifty  enjoy- 
ments at  his  disposal  for  one  which  he  can 
obtain  in  the  country.  The  mere  sense  of 
forming  part  of  this  grand  and  complicated 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   183 

machine,  whereof  four  millions  of  men  and 
women  work  the  wheels,  makes  my  pulse  beat 
faster,  and  gives  me  a  sense  as  if  I  were 
marching  to  the  sound  of  trumpets.  Then  the 
finish  and  completeness  of  London  life  is 
delightful  to  the  thoroughly  civilized  mind. 
It  is  only  the  half-reclaimed  savage  who  is 
content  with  unpaved  and  unlighted  roads,  ill- 
trained  servants,  slovenly  equipages,  and  badly 
cooked,  badly  attended  dinners.  Like  my  lit- 
tle nibbling  prototype  who  served  his  feast 
*  sur  un  tapis  de  Turquiel  I  like  everything, 
down  to  the  little  card  on  which  my  menu  is 
written,  to  be  perfect  about  me.  The  less  I 
am  reminded  by  disagreeable  sensations  of  my 
animal  part,  the  more  room  is  left  for  the 
exercise  of  my  higher  intellectual  functions. 
The  ascetic  who  lives  on  locusts  and  wild 
honey,  and  catches  the  locusts,  has  far  less 
leisure  to  think  about  better  things  than  the 
alderman  who  sits  down  every  day  to  ten 
courses,  served  by  a  well-trained  staff  of  Lon- 
don servants.  The  sense  of  order,  of  ease,  of 
dignity  and  courtesy,  is  continually  fostered 
and  flattered  in  the  great  Imperial  City,  which, 
notwithstanding  its  petty  faults  of  local  govern- 
ment, is  still  the  freest  and  noblest  town  the 
globe  has  ever  borne.  People  talk  of  the 


184    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

'  freedom '  of  the  country,  and  my  quondam 
host,  the  Country  Mouse,  is  perpetually  boast- 
ing of  his  'crust  of  bread  and  liberty.'  But, 
except  the  not  very  valuable  license  to  wear 
shabby  old  clothes,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  discover 
wherein  the  special  freedom  of  rural  life  con- 
sists. You  are  certainly  watched,  and  your 
actions,  looks,  and  behavior  commented  on 
fifty  times  more  by  your  idle  neighbors  in  the 
country,  gasping  for  gossip,  than  by  your  busy 
neighbors  in  town,  who  never  trouble  them- 
selves to  turn  their  heads  when  you  pass  them 
in  the  street,  or  even  to  find  out  your  name 
if  you  live  next  door.  In  the  country,  you 
have  generally  the  option  of  going  on  either 
of  three  or  four  roads.  In  London,  you  have 
the  choice  of  as  many  thousand  streets.  In 
the  country,  you  may  '  kill  something '  when- 
ever you  take  your  walks  abroad,  if  that  special 
privilege  of  the  British  gentleman  be  dear  to 
your  soul,  and  you  care  to  shoot,  hunt,  or 
fish.  Or,  if  you  belong  to  the  softer  sex  or 
sort,  you  may  amuse  yourself  in  your  garden 
or  shrubbery,  play  tennis,  teach  in  the  village 
school,  or  pay  a  visit  to  some  country  neighbor 
who  will  bore  you  to  extinction.  In  London, 
you  have  ten  times  as  large  a  choice  of  occu- 
pations, and  five  hundred  times  as  pleasant 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   185 

people  to  visit;  seeing  that  in  the  country 
even  clever  men  and  women  grow  dull,  and 
in  town  the  most  stupid  get  frotte  with  other 
people's  ideas  and  humor. 

"Again, — and  this  is  a  most  important  con- 
sideration in  favor  of  London, —  when  a  man 
has  no  particular  bodily  pain  or  mental  afflic- 
tion, and  is  not  in  want  of  money,  the  worst 
evil  which  he  has  to  dread  is  ennui.  To  be 
bored  is  the  '  one  great  grief  of  life '  to  people 
who  have  no  other  grief.  But  can  there  be 
any  question  whether  ennui  is  better  avoided 
in  London  or  in  the  country?  Even  in  the 
month  of  August,  as  somebody  has  remarked, 
4  when  London  is  "  empty,"  there  are  always 
more  people  in  it  than  anywhere  else';  and 
where  there  are  people  there  must  be  the  end- 
less play  of  human  interests  and  sympathies. 
Nay,  for  my  part,  I  find  a  special  gratification 
in  the  cordiality  wherewith  my  acquaintances, 
left  stranded  like  myself  by  chance  in  the  dead 
season,  hail  me  when  we  meet  in  Pall  Mall 
like  shipwrecked  mariners  on  a  rock ;  and  in 
the  respectful  enthusiasm  wherewith  I  am 
greeted  in  the  half-deserted  shops,  where  in 
July  I  made  my  modest  purchases,  unnoticed 
and  unknown.  In  the  country,  on  the  con- 
trary, Ennui  stalks  abroad  all  the  year  round ; 


1 86    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

and  the  puerile  ceremonies  wherewith  the 
ignorant  natives  strive  to  conjure  away  the 
demon  —  the  dismal  tea  and  tennis  parties, 
the  deplorable  archery  meetings,  and,  above  all, 
the  really  frightful  antediluvian  institution, 
called  *  Spending  a  Day '  —  only  place  us 
more  helplessly  at  his  mercy,  We  conjugate 
the  reflective  verb  *  to  be  Bored,'  in  all  moods 
and  tenses;  not  in  the  light  and  airy  way  of 
townsfolk,  when  they  trivially  observe  they 
were  *  bored  at  such  a  party  last  night/  or 
decline  to  be  '  bored  by  going  to  hear  such 
a  preacher  on  Sunday  morning,'  but  sadly  and 
in  sober  earnest,  as  men  who  recognize  that 
boredom  is  a  chronic  disease  from  which  they 
have  no  hope  of  permanent  relief.  There  is, 
in  short,  the  same  difference  between  ennui  in 
the  country  and  ennui  in  town  as  between 
thirst  in  the  midst  of  Sahara  and  thirst  in 
one's  home,  where  one  may  ring  the  bell  at 
any  moment  and  call  for  soda  water." 

So  speaks  the  modern  Town  Mouse,  describ- 
ing the  more  superficial  and  obvious  advan- 
tages of  his  abode  over  those  of  his  friend  in 
the  country.  And  (equally  on  the  surface  of 
things)  straightway  replies  — 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   187 

COUNTRY  MOUSE. 

"  There  is  some  sense  in  these  boasts  of  my 
illustrious  friend  and  guest,  but  against  them 
I  think  I  can  produce  equivalent  reasons  for 
preferring  the  country.  In  the  first  place,  if 
he  lives  faster,  I  live  longer ;  and  I  have  better 
health  than  he  all  the  time.  My  lungs  are  not 
clogged  with  smoke,  my  brain  not  addled  by 
eternal  hurry  and  interruption,  my  eyes  not 
dimmed  by  fog  and  gaslight  into  premature 
blindness.  While  his  limbs  are  stiffening  year 
by  year  till  he  can  only  pace  along  his  monoto- 
nous pavement,  I  retain  till  the  verge  of  old 
age  much  of  the  agility  and  vigor  wherewith 
I  walked  the  moors  and  climbed  the  mountains 
in  my  youth.  He  is  pleased  at  having  twenty 
times  as  many  sensations  in  a  day  as  I ;  but, 
if  nineteen  out  of  the  twenty  be  jarring  noises, 
noxious  smells,  plague,  worry,  and  annoyance, 
I  am  quite  content  with  my  humbler  share  of 
experience.  Even  if  his  thick-coming  sensa- 
tions and  ideas  be  all  pleasant,  I  doubt  if  he 
ever  have  the  leisure  necessary  to  enjoy  them. 
Very  little  would  be  gained  by  the  most  ex- 
quisite dinner  ever  cooked,  and  the  finest 
wines  ever  bottled,  if  a  man  should  be  obliged 
to  gobble  them  standing  up,  while  his  train, 


1 88         TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

just  ready  to  start,  is  whistling  behind  him. 
Londoners  gulp  their  pleasures,  we  country 
folk  sip  such  as  come  in  our  way ;  think  of 
them  a  long  time  in  advance  with  pleasant 
anticipation,  and  ruminate  on  them  and  talk 
them  over  for  months  afterwards.  I  submit 
that  even  a  few  choice  gratifications  thus  care- 
fully prized  add  to  a  man's  sense  of  happiness 
as  much  as  double  the  number  which  are 
received  when  he  is  too  weary  to  enjoy  or  too 
hurried  to  recall  them. 

"Again,  the  permanent  and  indefeasible 
delights  of  the  country  seem  somehow  to  be 
more  indispensable  to  human  beings  than  the 
high-strung  gratifications  of  the  town.  The 
proof  of  this  fact  is  that,  while  we  can  live  at 
home  all  the  year  round,  Town  Mice,  after 
eight  or  nine  months'  residence  at  longest, 
begin  to  hate  their  beloved  city,  and  pine  for 
the  country.  Even  when  they  are  in  the  full 
fling  of  the  London  season,  it  is  instructive  to 
notice  the  enthusiasm  and  sparkle  wherewith 
they  discuss  their  projected  tours  a  few 
weeks  later  among  Swiss  mountains  or  up 
Norwegian  fiords.  Also  it  may  be  observed 
how  of  all  the  entertainments  of  the  year  the 
most  popular  are  the  Flower-shows,  and  the 
afternoon  Garden-parties  in  certain  private 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE       189 

grounds.  Even  the  wretched,  unmanly  sport 
of  Hurlingham  has  become  fashionable,  chiefly 
because  it  has  brought  men  and  women  out  of 
London  for  a  day  into  the  semblance  of  a 
country  place.  Had  the  gentlemen  shot  the 
poor  pigeons  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  or 
Bloomsbury,  the  admiring  spectators  of  their 
prowess  would  have  been  exceedingly  few. 
Nay,  it  is  enough  to  watch  in  any  London 
drawing-room  wherein  may  stand  on  one  table 
a  bouquet  of  the  costliest  hot-house  flowers, 
and  on  the  other  a  bowl  of  primroses  in  March, 
of  hawthorn  in  May,  and  of  purple  heather  in 
July,  and  see  how  every  guest  will  sooner  or 
later  pay  some  little  affectionate  attention  to 
the  vase  which  brings  the  reminiscence  of  the 
fields,  woods,  and  mountains,  taking  no  notice 
at  all  of  the  gorgeous  azaleas  and  pelargoni- 
ums, gardenias,  and  camellias,  in  the  rival  nose- 
gay. It  is  very  well  to  boast  of  the  'perfec- 
tion '  and  *  finish '  of  London  life,  but  the 
*  perfection '  fails  to  supply  the  first  want  of 
nature, —  fresh  air;  and  the  'finish'  yet  waits 
for  a  commencement  in  cheerful  sunlight  un- 
obscured  by  smoke  and  fog,  and  a  silence 
which  shall  not  be  marred  all  day  and  night 
by  hideous,  jarring,  and  distracting  sounds. 
What  man  is  there  who  would  prefer  to  live 


I9O         TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

in  one  of  the  Venetian  palace  chambers,  gor- 
geously decorated  and  adorned  with  frescos 
and  marbles,  and  gilding  and  mirrors,  but  with 
a  huge  high  wall,  black,  damp,  and  slimy, 
within  two  feet  of  the  windows,  shutting  out 
the  light  of  day  and  the  air  of  heaven,  rather 
than  in  a  homely  English  drawing-room,  fur- 
nished with  nothing  better  than  a  few  passable 
water-color  sketches  and  some  chintz-covered 
chairs  and  sofas,  but  opening  down  wide  on 
a  sunny  garden,  with  an  acacia  waving  its 
blossoms  over  the  emerald  sward,  and  the  chil- 
dren weaving  daisy  chains  round  the  neck  of 
the  old  collie  who  lies  beside  them,  panting 
with  the  warmth  of  the  weather  and  his  own 
benevolence  ? 

"  Then  as  to  the  dulness  of  our  country  con- 
versation, wherewith  my  distinguished  friend 
the  Town  Mouse  has  rather  impolitely  taunted 
us.  Is  it  because  we  take  no  particular  inter- 
est in  his  gossip  of  the  clubs  that  he  thinks 
himself  justified  in  pronouncing  us  stupid? 
Perhaps  we  also  think  him  a  trifle  local  (if  we 
may  not  say  provincial)  in  his  choice  of  topics, 
and  are  of  opinion  that  the  harvest  prospects 
of  our  country,  and  the  relations  of  agricultural 
labor  to  capital,  are  subjects  quite  as  worthy  of 
attention  as  his  petty  and  transitory  cancans 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   1 91 

about  articles  in  reviews,  quarrels,  scandals,  and 
jests.  East  Indians  returning  to  Europe  after 
long  absence  are  often  amazed  that  nobody  at 
home  cares  much  to  hear  why  Colonel  Chutnee 
was  sent  from  Curriepoor  to  Liverabad,  or  how 
it  happened  that  Mrs.  Cayenne  broke  off  her 
engagement  with  old  General  Temperatesty. 
And  in  like  manner  perhaps  a  Londoner  may 
be  surprised  without  much  reason  that  his  in- 
tensely interesting  'latest  intelligence'  is  rather 
thrown  away  upon  us  down  in  the  shires." 

These,  as  we  premised,  are  the  obvious  and 
salient  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  Town 
and  Country  life  respectively  observed  and 
recognized  by  everybody  who  thinks  on  the 
subject.  It  is  the  purport  of  the  present  paper 
to  pass  beyond  them  to  some  of  the  more 
subtle  and  less  noticed  features  of  either  mode 
of  existence,  and  to  attempt  to  strike  some 
kind  of  balance  of  the  results  as  regards  indi- 
viduals of  different  character  and  the  same 
individual  in  youth  and  old  age. 

When  we  ask  seriously  the  question  which, 
of  any  two  ways  of  spending  our  years,  is  the 
most  conducive  to  Happiness,  we  are  apt  to 
overlook  the  fact  that  it  is  not  the  one  which 
supplies  us  with  the  most  numerous  isolated 


I Q2          TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

items  of  pleasure,  but  the  one  of  which  the 
whole  current  tends  to  maintain  in  us  the 
capacity  for  enjoyment  at  the  highest  pitch  and 
for  as  long  a  time  as  possible.  There  is  some- 
thing exceedingly  stupid  in  our  common  prac- 
tice of  paying  superabundant  attention  to  all 
the  external  factors  of  happiness  down  to  the 
minutest  rose-leaf  which  can  be  smoothed  out  for 
our  ease,  and  all  the  time  forgetting  that  there 
must  always  be  an  internal  factor  of  delight- 
ability  to  produce  the  desired  result,  just  as 
there  must  be  an  eye  wherewith  to  see  as  well 
as  candles  to  give  light.  The  faculty  of  taking 
enjoyment,  of  finding  sweetness  in  the  rose, 
grandeur  in  the  mountain,  refreshment  in  food 
and  rest,  interest  in  books,  and  happiness  in 
loving  and  being  loved,  is  —  as  we  must  per- 
ceive the  moment  we  consider  it — indefinitely 
more  precious  than  any  gratification  which  can 
be  offered  to  the  senses,  the  intellect,  or  the 
affections,  just  as  eyesight  is  more  valuable 
than  the  finest  landscape,  and  the  power  of 
loving  better  than  the  homage  of  a  world. 
Yet,  as  Shelley  lamented, — 

"  Rarely,  rarely  comest  thou, 
Spirit  of  Delight " ; 

and  we  allow  it  to  remain  absent  from  our  souls, 
and  grow  accustomed  to  living  without  it,  while 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   193 

all  the  time  we  are  plodding  on,  multiplying 
gratifications  and  stimulants,  while  the  delicate 
and  evanescent  sense  they  are  meant  to  please 
is  becoming  numb  and  dead.  We  often,  indeed, 
make  religio-philosophical  remarks  on  the  beau- 
tiful patience  and  cheerfulness  of  sufferers 
from  agonizing  disease,  and  we  smile  at  the  un- 
failing hilarity  wherewith  certain  Mark  Tapleys 
of  our  acquaintance  sustain  the  slings  and 
arrows  of  outrageous  fortune.  We  quote, 
with  high  approval,  the  poet  who  sings  that 

"  Stone  walls  do  not  a  prison  make, 
Nor  iron  bars  a  cage." 

Nevertheless,  the  singular  phenomenon  of  evi- 
dent, unmistakable  Happiness  enjoyed,  in  de- 
spite of  circa  nstances,  never  seems  to  teach 
us  how  entirely  secondary  all  objective  circum- 
stances needs  must  be  to  the  subjective  side  of 
the  question,  and  how  much  more  rational  it 
would  be  on  our  part  to  look  first  to  securing 
for  ourselves  the  longest  and  completest  tenure 
of  the  internal  elements  of  enjoyment  before  we 
turn  our  attention  to  the  attainment  of  those 
which  are  external. 

The  bearing  of  this  remark  on  the  present 
subject  is,  of  course,  obvious.  Is  it  Life  in 
Town  or  Life  in  the  Country  wherein  the 


194    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

springs  of  happiness  flow  with  perennial  fresh- 
ness, and  wherein  the  Spirit  of  Delight  will 
burn  brightest  and  longest?  To  solve  this 
problem,  we  must  turn  over  in  our  minds  the 
various  conditions  of  such  a  state  of  mind  and 
spirits,  the  most  generally  recognized  of  which 
is  bodily  Health. 

There  is  not  the  smallest  danger  in  these 
days  that  any  inquirer,  however  careless,  should 
overlook  the  vast  importance  of  physical  sound- 
ness to  every  desirable  mental  result.  Indeed, 
on  the  contrary,  we  may  rather  expect  shortly 
to  find  our  teachers  treating  Disease  as  the 
only  real  delinquency  in  the  world,  and  all 
crimes  and  vices  as  mere  symptoms  of  dis- 
ordered nerves  or  overloaded  stomach, —  klepto- 
mania, dipsomania,  homicidal  mania,  or  some- 
thing equally  pardonable  on  the  part  of  autom- 
ata like  ourselves.  Seriously  speaking,  a  high 
state  of  health,  such  as  the  "  Original  "  described 
himself  as  having  attained,  or  even  something 
a  few  degrees  less  perfect,  is,  undoubtedly,  a 
potent  factor  in  the  sum  of  happiness,  causing 
every  separate  sensation — sleeping,  waking, 
eating,  drinking,  exercise,  and  rest  —  to  be  de- 
lightful ;  and  the  folly  of  people  who  seek  for 
Happiness,  and  yet  barter  away  Health  for 
Wealth  or  Fame,  or  any  other  element  thereof, 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE       195 

is  like  that  of  a  man  who  should  sell  gold  for 
dross.  Admitting  this,  it  would  seem  to  fol- 
low that  Life  in  the  Country,  generally  under- 
stood to  be  the  most  wholesome,  must  be  the 
most  conducive  to  the  state  of  enjoyment. 
But  there  are  two  points  not  quite  cleared  up 
on  the  way  to  this  conclusion.  First,  bodily 
health  seems  to  be,  to  some  people,  anything 
but  the  blessing  it  ought  to  be,  rendering  them 
merely  coarse  and  callous,  untouched  by  those 
finer  impulses  and  sentiments  which  pain  has 
taught  their  feebler  companions,  and  so  shut- 
ting them  out  from  many  of  the  purest  and  most 
spiritual  joys  of  humanity.  Paley  questioned 
whether  the  sum  of  happiness  would  not  be  in- 
creased to  most  of  us  by  one  hour  of  moderate 
pain  in  every  twenty-four;  and,  though  few 
would  directly  ask  for  the  increment  of  enjoy- 
ment so  attained,  there  are  perhaps  still  fewer 
who  would  desire  to  unlearn  all  the  lessons 
taught  in  the  school  of  suffering,  or  find  them- 
selves with  the  gross,  oxlike  nature  of  many  a 
farmer  or  publican,  whose  rubicund  visage  bears 
testimony  to  his  vigorous  appetite  and  to  the 
small  amount  of  pain,  sorrow,  or  anxiety  which 
his  own  or  anybody  else's  troubles  have  ever 
caused  him.  Taking  it  all  in  all,  it  seems 
doubtful,  then,  whether  the  most  invariably 


196    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

robust  people  are  really  much  higher  than 
those  with  more  fluctuating  health  who  have 
taken  from  the  bitter  cup  the  sweet  drop  which 
is  always  to  be  found  at  the  bottom  by  those 
who  seek  it.  For  those,  unhappiest  of  all, 
whom  disease  has  only  rendered  more  selfish 
and  self-centred  and  rebellious,  there  is,  of 
course,  no  comparison  possible. 

And,  secondly,  Is  it  thoroughly  proved  that 
country  life  is  invariably  healthier  than  the  life 
of  towns  ?  The  maladies  arising  from  bad  air, 
late  hours,  and  that  overwork  and  overstrain 
which  is  the  modern  Black  Death,  are  of  course 
unknown  in  the  calm-flowing  existence  of  a 
rural  squire  and  his  family.  But  there  are  other 
diseases  which  come  of  monotonous  repose,  un- 
varying meals,  and  general  tedium  vitae,  quite  as 
bad  as  the  scourges  of  the  town.  Of  all  sources 
of  ill  health,  I  am  inclined  to  think  lack  of 
interest  in  life,  and  the  constant  society  of  dull 
and  disheartening  people,  the  very  worst  and 
most  prolific.  Undoubtedly,  it  is  so  among 
the  upper  class  of  women  ;  and  the  warnings  of 
certain  American  physicians  against  the  adop- 
tion by  girls  of  any  serious  or  earnest  pursuit 
seems  painfully  suggestive  of  a  well-founded 
alarm  lest  their  own  lists  of  hysterical  and 
dyspeptic  patients  should  show  a  falling  off 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   1 97 

under  the  new  impetus  given  to  women's  work 
and  study.    In  London,  people  have  very  much 
less   leisure  to  think  about  their  ailments,  or 
allow  the  doctor's  visit  to  become  a  permanent 
institution,  as  is  so  often  the  case  in  country 
houses.     The    result   is   that  (whether  or  not 
statistics  prove  the  existence  of  more  sickness 
in  town  than  in  the  country)  at  least  we  do  not 
hear   of   eternally    ailing    people   in    London 
nearly  so  often  as  we  do  in  country  neighbor- 
hoods, where  there  are  always  to  be  found  as 
stock  subjects  of  local  interest  and  sympathy 
old  Mr.  A.'s  gout,  and  Lady    B.'s   liver  com- 
plaint;  and   those   sad  headaches   which   yet 
fortunately  enable   poor    Mrs.  C.  to  spend  at 
least  one  day  in  the  week  in  her  darkened  bed- 
room out  of  the  reach  of  her  lord's  intolerable 
temper.*     Be  it  also  that  the  maladies  which 
townsfolk  mostly  escape  —  namely,  dyspepsia, 
hysteria,  and  neuralgia  —  are    precisely   those 
which  exercise  the  most  direct  and  fatal  influ- 
ence on  human  powers  of  enjoyment,  whereas 
the  ills  to  which  flesh  is  heir  in  great  cities, 
among  the  upper  and  well-fed  classes,  are  gen- 
erally more  remotely  connected  therewith. 
But — pace  the  doctors  and  all  their  material- 

*  I  have  heard  this  peculiar  but  common  form  of  feminine  afflic- 
tion classified  as  the  "  Bad  Husband  Headache." 


198          TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

istic  followers  —  I  question  very  much  whether 
bodily  health,  the  mere  absence  of  physical 
disease,  be  nearly  as  indispensable  a  condition 
of  happiness  as  certain  peculiarities  of  the 
mental  and  moral  constitution.  The  disposi- 
tion to  Anxiety,  for  instance,  which  reduces 
many  lives  to  a  purgatory  of  incessant  care, — 
about  money,  about  the  opinion  of  society,  or 
about  the  health  and  well-being  of  children,— 
is  certainly  a  worse  drawback  to  peace  and 
happiness  than  half  the  diseases  in  the  Regis- 
trar-General's list.  This  anxious  temperament 
is  commonly  supposed  to  be  fostered  and 
excited  in  towns,  and  laid  to  sleep  in  the 
peaceful  life  of  the  country;  and,  if  it  were 
certainly  and  invariably  so,  I  think  the  balance 
of  happiness  between  the  two  would  well-nigh 
be  settled  by  that  fact  alone.  But  again  there 
is  something  to  be  said  on  the  side  of  the 
town.  An  African  traveller  has  described  to 
me  how,  after  months  exposed  to  the  intermi- 
nable perils  from  man  and  brute  and  climate,  he 
felt,  after  his  first  night  on  board  a  homeward- 
bound  English  ship,  a  reaction  from  the  terr 
sion  of  anxiety  which  revealed  to  himself  the 
anguish  he  had  been  half-unconsciously  endur- 
ing for  many  months.  In  like  manner  the 
city  man  or  the  statesman  feels,  when  at  last 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE       199 

he  takes  his  summer  holiday,  under  what  tre- 
mendous pressure  of  care  he  has  been  living 
during  the  past  year,  or  session,  in  London ; 
and  he  compares  it,  naturally  enough,  with  the 
comparatively  careless  life  of  his  friend,  the 
country  squire.  But  every  one  in  London 
does  not  run  a  race  for  political  victory  or 
social  success,  and  there  are  yet  some  sober 
old  ways  of  business  —  both  legal  and  mercan- 
tile—  which  do  not  involve  the  alternative  of 
wealth  or  ruin  every  hour.  For  such  people 
I  apprehend  London  life  is  actually  rather  a 
cure  for  an  anxious  temperament  than  a  provo- 
cative of  care.  There  is  no  time  for  dwelling 
on  topics  of  a  painful  sort,  or  raising  spectres 
of  possible  evils  ahead.  Labors  and  pleasures, 
amusements  and  monetary  worries,  succeed 
each  other  so  rapidly  that  the  more  serious 
anxieties  receive  less  and  less  attention  as  the 
plot  of  London  life  thickens  year  by  year. 
One  nail  drives  out  another,  and  we  are  now 
and  then  startled  to  remember  that  there  has 
been  really  for  days  and  months  a  reasonable 
fear  of  disaster  hanging  over  us  to  which  we 
have  somehow  scarcely  given  a  thought,  while 
in  the  country  it  would  have  filled  our  whole 
horizon,  and  we  should  scarcely  have  forgotten 
it  day  or  night. 


2OO         TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

And,  again,  quite  as  important  as  bodily 
health  and  freedom  from  anxiety  is  the  posses- 
sion of  a  certain  childlike  freshness  of  char- 
acter; a  simplicity  which  enables  men  and 
women,  even  in  old  age,  to  enjoy  such  inno- 
cent pleasures  as  come  in  their  way  without 
rinding  them  pall,  or  despising  them  as  not 
worth  their  acceptance.  Great  minds  and 
men  of  genius  seem  generally  specially  gifted 
with  this  invaluable  attribute  of  perennial 
youth;  while  little  souls,  full  of  their  own 
petty  importance  and  vanities,  lose  it  before 
they  are  well  out  of  the  school-room.  The 
late  sculptor,  John  Gibson  (whose  works  will 
be,  perhaps,  appreciated  when  all  the  mon- 
strosities of  modern  English  statuary  are  con- 
signed to  the  lime-kiln),  used  to  say  in  his  old 
age  that  he  wished  he  could  live  over  again 
every  day  and  hour  of  his  past  life  precisely  as 
he  had  spent  it.  Let  the  reader  measure  what 
this  means  in  the  mouth  of  a  man  of  trans- 
parent veracity,  and  it  will  appear  that  the 
speaker  must  needs  have  carried  on  through 
his  seventy  years  the  freshness  of  heart  of  a 
boy,  never  wearied  by  his  ardent  pursuit  of 
the  Beautiful,  and  supported  by  the  conscious- 
ness that  this  pursuit  was  not  wholly  in  vain. 
People  who  are  always  "  looking  for  the  next 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE      2OI 

thing,"  taking  each  phasure  not  as  pleasure 
per  se,  but  merely  as  a  useful  stepping-stone  to 
something  else  which  may  possibly  be  pleasure, 
or  as  a  subject  to  be  talked  of;  people  who 
are  always  climbing,  like  boys  at  a  fair,  up  the 
slippery  pole  of  ambition,  —  cannot  possibly 
know  the  meaning  of  such  genuine  and  ever 
fresh  enjoyment. 

Is  a  man  likely  to  grow  more  or  less  simple- 
hearted  and  single-minded  in  Town  or  in  the 
Country?  Alas!  there  can  be  little  or  no 
doubt  that  London  life  is  a  sad  trial  to  all  such 
simplicity;  and  that  nothing  is  more  difficult 
than  to  preserve,  in  its  hot,  stifling  atmosphere, 
the  freshness  and  coolness  of  any  flower  of 
sentiment,  or  the  glory  of  any  noble,  unselfish 
enthusiasm.  Social  wear  and  tear,  and  the 
tone  of  easy-letting-down  commonly  adopted 
by  men  of  the  world  towards  any  lofty  aspira- 
tion, compel  those  who  would  fain  cherish 
generous  and  conscientious  motives  to  cloak 
them  under  the  guise  of  a  hobby  or  a  whim, 
and,  before  many  years  are  over,  the  glow  and 
bloom  of  almost  every  enthusiasm  is  rubbed  off 
and  spoiled. 

But  it  is  time  to  pass  from  the  general  sub- 
jective conditions  of  happiness  common  to  us 
all  to  those  individual  tastes  and  idiosyncrasies 


202          TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

which  are  probably  more  often  concerned  in  the 
preference  of  town  or  country  life.  We  are  all 
of  us  mingled  of  pretty  nearly  the  same  ingre- 
dients of  character ;  but  they  are  mixed  in  very 
different  proportions  in  each  man's  brewing, 
and  in  determining  the  flavor  of  the  compound 
everything  depends  on  the  element  which  hap- 
pens to  prevail.  By  some  odd  chance,  few  of 
us,  notwithstanding  all  our  egotism  and  self- 
study,  really  know  ourselves  well  enough  to 
recognize  whether  we  are  by  nature  gregarious 
or  solitary,  acted  upon  most  readily  by  meteoro- 
logical or  by  psychological  influences,  capable 
of  living  only  on  our  affections  or  requiring  the 
exercise  of  our  brains.  We  are  always,  for  ex- 
ample, talking  about  the  gloom  or  brightness 
of  the  weather,  as  if  we  were  so  many  pimper- 
nels, to  whom  the  sun  is  everything  and  a 
cloudy  day  or  a  sharp  east  wind  the  most  piti- 
able calamity.  The  real  truth  is  that,  to  ninety- 
nine  healthy  English  men  and  women  out  of  a 
hundred,  atmospheric  conditions  are  insignifi- 
cant compared  to  social  ones;  and  the  spectacle 
of  a  single  member  of  the  family  in  the  dumps, 
or  even  the  suspicion  that  the  servants  are 
quarrelling  in  the  kitchen,  detracts  more  from 
our  faculty  of  enjoyment  than  a  fall  of  the 
barometer  from  Very  Dry  to  Stormy.  In  the 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE         203 

same  way  we  talk  about  people  "loving  the 
country"  or  "loving  the  town,"  just  as  if  the 
character  which  fitted  in  and  found  its  natural 
gratification  in  the  one  were  qualified  to  enjoy 
quite  equally  the  other.  Obviously,  in  some  of 
us  the  passion  for  Nature  and  natural  beauty  is 
so  prominent  that,  if  it  be  starved  (as  it  must 
needs  be  in  a  great  city)  or  only  tantalized  by 
the  sight  of  pictures  reminding  us  of  woods 
and  hills  and  fresh  breezes  when  we  are  stifled 
and  jostled  in  the  crowded  rooms  of  Burlington 
House  or  the  Grosvenor  Gallery,  we  miss  so 
much  out  of  life  that  nothing  can  make  up  for 
it,  and  no  pleasures  of  the  intellect  in  the  com- 
pany of  clever  people,  or  gratification  of  taste 
in  the  most  luxurious  home,  are  sufficient  to 
banish  the  regret.  A  young  branch  swaying  in 
the  breeze  of  spring,  and  the  song  of  the  lark 
rising  out  of  the  thyme  and  the  clover,  are 
better  than  all  the  pictures,  the  concerts,  the 
conversation  which  the  town  can  offer.  And 
just  in  the  opposite  way  there  are  others 
amongst  us  in  whom  the  aesthetic  element  is 
subordinate  to  the  social,  and  who  long  to 
take  a  part  in  the  world's  work  rather  than  to 
stand  by  and  watch  the  grand  panorama  of 
summer  and  winter  move  before  them  while 
they  remain  passive.  Is  it  not  patently  absurd 


2O4          TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

to  talk  as  if  persons  so  differently  constituted  as 
these  could  find  happiness, — the  one  where  his 
ingrained  passion  for  Nature  is  permanently 
denied  its  innocent  and  easy  gratification,  the 
other  where  his  no  less  deeply  rooted  interest 
in  the  concerns  of  his  kind  is  narrowed  within 
the  petty  sphere  of  rural  social  life  ? 

But  let  us  now  pass  on,  hoping  that  we  have 
found  the  round  man  for  the  round  hole,  and 
the  square  man  for  the  square  one.  What  are 
the  more  hidden  and  recondite  charms  of  the 
two  modes  of  life,  of  which  the  Town  Mouse 
and  the  Country  Mouse  have  rehearsed  the 
superficial  characters?  What  is  the  meaning 
in  the  first  place  of  that  taste  for  "  Life  at 
High  Pressure,"  against  which  W.  R.  Greg 
cautioned  us,  and  Matthew  Arnold  inveighed? 
How  was  it  that  the  sage  Dr.  Johnson  felt 
undoubtedly  a  twinge  of  the  same  unholy  pas- 
sion when  he  remarked  to  the  faithful  Boswell 
how  delightful  it  was  to  drive  fast  in  a  post- 
chaise, —  in  such  a  post-chaise,  and  over  such 
roads  as  existed  in  his  time?  I  apprehend 
that  the  love  for  rapid  movement  comes  from 
the  fact  that  it  always  conveys  to  us  a  sense 
of  vivid  volition,  and  effectually  stirs  both  our 
pulses  and  our  brains,  causing  us  not  only  to 
seem  to  ourselves,  but  actually  to  become, 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   205 

more  intelligent.  At  first  the  bustle  and 
hurry  of  London  life  bewilder  the  visitor;  and, 
finding  it  impossible  to  think,  move,  and 
speak  as  fast  as  is  needful,  he  feels  as  a  feeble 
old  lady  might  do  arm-in-arm  with  Jack  in  his 
Seven-league  boots.  But  after  a  little  while 
he  learns  to  step  out  mentally  as  rapidly  as 
his  neighbors,  and  thereby  acquires  the  double 
satisfaction  of  the  intrinsic  pleasure  of  think- 
ing quickly  and  not  dwelling  on  ideas  till  they 
become  tedious,  and  the  further  sense  of  grati- 
fied vanity  in  being  as  clever  as  other  people. 
This  last  is  again  a  curious  source  of  metro- 
politan satisfaction.  It  is  all  very  well  to  boast 
of  having  "also  dwelt  in  Arcadia."  Such 
pastoral  pride  is  humility  beside  the  conceit 
of  being  a  thorough-bred  Londoner.  There 
may  live  many  men  with  souls  so  dead  as 
never  to  themselves  to  have  said  —  anything 
signifying  peculiar  appropriation  of  the  soil  of 
Scotland,  or  of  any  other  "  native  land."  But 
who  has  ever  yet  met  a  Cockney  who  was  not 
from  the  bottom  to  the  top  of  his  soul  proud 
of  being  a  Londoner,  and  deeply  convinced 
that  he  and  his  fellows  can  alone  be  counted 
as  standing  "  in  the  foremost  files  of  time  "  ? 
Of  course,  whilst  he  is  actually  in  London,  he 
has  no  provocation  to  betray  his  self-satisfac- 


2O6          TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

tion  among  people  who  can  all  make  the  same 
boast.  But  watch  him  the  moment  he  passes 
into  the  country.  Observe  the  pains  he  takes 
that  the  natives  shall  fully  understand  what 
manner  of  man,  even  a  Londoner,  they  have 
the  privilege  of  entertaining,  and  no  doubt  will 
remain  as  to  how  immensely  superior  he  feels 
himself  to  those  who  habitually  dwell  "far  from 
the  madding  crowd."  If  he  wander  into  the 
remoter  provinces,  say  of  Scotland,  Wales,  or 
Ireland,  there  is  always  in  his  recognition  of 
the  hospitality  shown  to  him  a  tone  like  that 
of  the  shipwrecked  apostle  in  Malta :  "  The  Bar- 
barous people  there  showed  us  no  small  kind- 
ness." He  manages  to  convey  by  looks,  words, 
and  manners  his  astonishment  at  any  vestiges 
of  civilization  which  he  may  meet  on  those 
distant  shores,  and  exhibits  graceful  forbear- 
ance in  putting  up  with  the  delicious  fresh 
fruit,  cream,  vegetables,  and  home-fed  beef 
and  mutton  of  his  entertainers  in  lieu  of 
the  stale  produce  of  the  London  shops.  One 
such  stranded  Cockney  I  have  known  to 
remark  that  he  "  observed  "  that  the  eggs  at 

N ,  and   at   another  country  house  where 

he  occasionally  visited,  had  in  them  a  "pecul- 
iar milky  substance,"  about  whose  merits  he 
seemed  doubtful ;  and  another  I  have  heard, 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   2O7 

after  landing  at  Holyhead  on  his  return  from 
Ireland,  complacently  comparing  his  watch 
(which  had,  like  himself,  faithfully  kept  Lon- 
don time  during  all  his  tour)  with  the  clock 
in  the  station,  and  observing  to  his  fellow-pas- 
sengers "that  there  was  not  a  single  clock 
right  in  Dublin, —  they  were  all  twenty  minutes 
too  slow, —  and,  when  he  went  to  Galway,  he 
found  them  still  worse." 

Even  if  a  man  sincerely  prefer  country  life, 
and  transfer  his  abode  from  London  to  the 
rural  districts,  he  still  retains  a  latent  satis- 
faction at  having  lived  once  in  the  very  centre 
of  human  interests,  close  to  the  throbbing  heart 
of  the  world.  The  old  squire,  who  has  been 
too  gouty  and  too  indolent  to  run  up  to  town 
for  twenty  years,  will  still  brighten  up  at  the 
names  of  the  familiar  streets  and  play-houses, 
and  will  tell  anecdotes,  the  chief  interest  of 
which  seems  to  lie  in  the  fact  that  he  formerly 
lodged  in  Jermyn  Street,  or  bought  his  seals  at 
the  corner  of  Waterloo  Place,  or  had  his  hair 
cut  in  Bond  Street,  preparatory  to  going  to  the 
play  in  Drury  Lane. 

As  volunteers  enjoy  a  field  day  with  the 
manoeuvres  and  marches,  so  a  Londoner  expe- 
riences a  dim  sense  of  pleasure  in  forming  part 
of  the  huge  army  of  four  millions  of  human  be- 


2O8    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

ings  who  are  for  ever  moving  hither  and  thither, 
and  yet  strangely  bringing  about,  not  confusion, 
but  order.  The  Greek  philosophers  and  states- 
men, who  thought  such  a  little  tiny  "  Polis  "  as 
Athens  or  Sparta  (not  an  eighth  part  of  one 
postal  district  of  London)  almost  a  miracle  of 
divine  order,  would  have  fallen  down  and  wor- 
shipped at  the  shrine  of  Gog  and  Magog  for 
having  provided  that  a  whole  nation  should  be 
fed,  housed,  clothed,  washed,  lighted,  warmed, 
taught,  and  amused  for  years  and  generations 
in  a  single  city  eight  miles  long.  It  is  impos- 
sible not  to  feel  an  ever  fresh  interest  and  even 
surprise  in  the  solution  of  so  marvellous  a 
problem  as  this  human  ant-hill  presents,  and 
Londoners  themselves,  perhaps  even  more  than 
their  visitors,  are  wont  to  watch  with  pleasant 
wonder  each  occurrence  which  brings  its  mag- 
nitude to  mind:  the  long  quadruple  train  of 
splendid  equipages  filing  through  Hyde  Park  of 
a  summer  afternoon ;  the  scene  presented  by 
the  river  at  the  Oxford  and  Cambridge  boat- 
race  ;  or  the  overwhelming  spectacle  of  such 
crowds  as  greeted  the  Queen  on  her  Jubilee. 

The  facility  wherewith  a  busy-minded  person, 
possessed  of  moderate  pecuniary  resources,  can 
carry  out  almost  any  project  in  London,  is 
another  great  source  of  the  pleasure  of  town 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE       209 

life.  At  every  corner  a  cab,  a  hansom,  an 
omnibus,  an  underground  station,  or  a  penny 
steamboat,  is  ready  to  convey  him  rapidly  and 
securely  to  any  part  of  the  vast  area;  and  a 
post-pillar  or  post-office  or  telegraph  office,  to 
forward  his  letter  or  card  or  telegram.  He 
has  acquired  the  privilege  of  Briareus  for  do- 
ing the  work  of  a  hundred  hands,  while  the 
scores  of  penny  and  half-penny  newspapers 
give  him  the  benefit  of  the  hundred  eyes  of 
Argus  to  see  how  to  do  it. 

Not  many  people  seem  to  notice  wherein  the 
last  and  greatest  of  London  pleasures,  that  of 
London  society,  has  its  special  attraction.  It 
is  contrasted  with  the  very  best  society  which 
the  Country  can  ever  afford,  by  offering  the 
charm  of  the  imprevu.  There  are  always  in- 
definite possibilities  of  the  most  delightful  and 
interesting  new  acquaintances  or  of  the  re- 
newal of  old  friendships  in  London:  whereas 
even  in  the  most  brilliant  circles  in  the  country 
we  are  aware,  before  we  enter  a  house,  that  our 
host's  choice  of  our  fellow-guests  must  have  lain 
within  a  very  narrow  and  restricted  circle,  and 
that,  if  a  stranger  should  happily  have  fallen 
from  the  skies  into  the  neighborhood,  his  ad- 
vent would  have  been  proclaimed  in  our  note 
of  invitation.  Now  it  is  much  more  piquant  to 


2IO    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

meet  an  agreeable  person  unexpectedly  than  by 
formal  rendezvous ;  and,  for  that  large  propor- 
tion of  mankind  who  are  not  particularly  agree- 
able, it  is  still  more  essential  that  they  should 
be  presented  freshly  to  our  acquaintance. 
Other  things  being  equal,  a  Stranger  Bore  is 
never  half  so  great  a  bore  as  a  Familiar  Bore, 
of  whose  boredom  we  have  already  had  inti- 
mate and  painful  experience.  There  yet  hangs 
about  the  Stranger  Bore  somewhat  of  the  mists 
of  early  day,  and  we  are  a  little  while  in  pierc- 
ing them  and  thoroughly  deciding  that  he  is 
a  bore  and  nothing  better.  Often,  indeed,  for 
the  first  hour  or  two  of  acquaintanceship,  he 
fails  to  reveal  himself  in  his  true  colors,  and 
makes  remarks  and  tells  anecdotes  the  dulness 
of  which  we  shall  only  thoroughly  recognize 
when  we  have  heard  them  repeated  on  twenty 
other  occasions.  With  our  own  Familiar  Bore 
no  illusion  is  possible.  The  moment  we  see 
him  enter  the  room,  we  know  everything  that 
is  going  to  be  said  for  the  rest  of  the  evening, 
and  Hope  itself  escapes  out  of  Pandora's  box. 
Thus,  even  if  there  were  proportionately  as 
many  bores  in  London  as  in  the  provinces,  we 
should  still,  in  town,  enjoy  a  constant  change 
of  them,  which  would  considerably  lighten  the 
burden.  This,  however,  is  very  far  from  being 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   211 

the  case ;  and  the  stupid  wives  of  clever  men 
and  the  dull  husbands  of  clever  wives,  who 
alone  smuggle  into  the  inner  coteries  (few 
people  having  the  effrontery  to  omit  them  in 
their  invitations),  are  so  far  rubbed  up  and  in- 
structed in  the  best  means  of  concealing  their 
ignorance,  silliness,  or  stupidity,  that  they  are 
often  quite  harmless  and  inoffensive,  and  even 
qualified  to  shine  with  a  mild  reflected  lustre 
in  rural  society  in  the  autumn.  Certain  im- 
mutable laws  made  and  provided  by  society 
against  bores  are  brought  sooner  or  later  to 
their  knowledge.  They  do  not  tell  stories  more 
than  five  minutes  long  in  the  narration,  nor 
rehearse  jokes  till  they  fancy  they  can  recall 
the  point,  nor  entertain  their  friends  by  an 
abridgment  of  their  own  pedigree,  or  by  a  cata- 
logue of  the  ages,  names,  heights,  and  attain- 
ments in  the  Latin  grammar  of  their  hopeful 
offspring.  To  all  this  sort  of  thing  the  miser- 
able visitor  in  the  country  is  liable  to  be  sub- 
jected in  every  house  the  threshold  of  which  he 
may  venture  to  cross ;  for,  even  if  his  host  and 
hostess  be  the  most  delightful  people,  they 
generally  have  some  old  uncle  or  aunt,  or  priv- 
ileged and  pompous  neighbor,  with  whom  no- 
body has  ever  dared  to  interfere  in  his  ruthless 
exercise  of  the  power  to  bore,  and  who  will 


212    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

fasten  on  a  new  comer  just  as  mosquitoes  do  on 
fresh  arrivals  at  a  seaport  after  having  tor- 
mented all  the  old  inhabitants. 

And  if  London  Bores  are  as  lions  with  drawn 
teeth  and  clipped  claws,  London  pleasant 
people  on  the  other  hand  are  beyond  any 
doubt  the  pleasantest  in  the  world ;  more  true 
and  kind  and  less  eaten  up  by  vanity  and 
egotism  than  Parisians,  and  twice  as  agile- 
minded  as  the  very  cleverest  German. 

Again,  a  great  charm  of  London  is  that 
wealth  is  of  so  much  less  social  weight  there 
than  anywhere  else.  It  is  singular  what  mis- 
apprehensions are  current  on  this  subject,  and 
how  apt  are  country  people  to  say  that  money 
is  everything  in  town,  whereas  the  exact  con- 
verse of  the  proposition  is  nearer  the  truth.  In 
a  country  neighborhood,  the  man  who  lives  in 
the  largest  house,  drives  the  handsomest  horses, 
and  gives  the  most  luxurious  entertainments  is 
allowed  with  little  question  to  assume  a  prom- 
inent position,  be  he  never  so  dull  and  never  so 
vulgar ;  and,  though  respect  will  still  be  paid  to 
well-born  and  well-bred  people  of  diminished 
or  narrow  fortune,  their  position  as  regards 
their  nouveau  riche  neighbors  is  every  year  less 
dignified  or  agreeable.  Quite  on  the  contrary 
in  town:  with  no  income  beyond  what  is  need- 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE    213 

f  ul  to  subscribe  to  a  club  and  wear  a  good  coat, 
a  man  may  take  his  place  (hundreds  do  so  take 
a  place)  in  the  most  delightful  circles,  welcomed 
by  all  for  his  own  worth  or  agreeability,  for  the 
very  simple  and  sufficient  reason  that  people 
like  his  society  and  want  nothing  more  from 
him.  In  a  city  where  there  are  ten  thousand 
people  ready  to  give  expensive  dinners,  it  is 
not  the  possession  of  money  enough  to  enter- 
tain guests  which  can  by  itself  make  the  owner 
an  important  personage,  or  cause  the  world  to 
overlook  the  fact  that  he  is  a  snob;  nor  will  the 
lack  of  wealth  prevent  those  thousands  who 
are  on  the  look-out  only  for  a  pleasant  and 
brilliant  companion  from  cultivating  one,  be  he 
never  so  poor.  The  distinction  between  the 
rural  and  the  urban  way  of  viewing  a  new 
acquaintance  as  regards  both  birth  and  fortune 
is  very  curiously  betrayed  by  the  habit  of  towns- 
folk to  ask  simply  "what  a  man  may  be" 
(meaning,  "  Is  he  a  lawyer,  a  litterateur,  a  poli- 
tician, a  clergyman, —  above  all,  is  he  a  pleasant 
fellow  ? ")  and  that  of  country  gentry  invari- 
ably to  inquire,  "  Who  is  he  ? "  (meaning,  Has 
he  an  estate,  and  is  he  related  to  the  So-and-so's 
of  such  a  place  ? )  It  is  not  a  little  amusing 
sometimes  to  witness  the  discomfiture  of  both 
parties  when  a  bland  old  gentleman  is  intro- 


214         TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

duced  in  London  to  some  man  of  world-wide 
celebrity,  whose  antecedents  none  of  the  com- 
pany ever  dreamed  of  investigating,  and  the 
squire  courteously  intimates,  as  the  pleasantest 
thing  he  can  think  of  to  say,  that  he  "  used  to 
meet  often  in  the  hunting  field  a  gentleman  of 
that  name  who  had  a  fine  place  in  Cheshire," 
or  that  "  he  remembers  a  man  who  must  surely 
have  been  his  father — a  gentleman-commoner 
of  Christchurch." 

For  those  men  and  women  —  numerous 
enough  in  these  days — who  hold  rather  pro- 
nounced opinions  of  the  sort  not  relished  in 
country  circles,  who  are  heretics  regarding  the 
religious  or  political  creed  of  their  relatives 
and  neighbors,  London  offers  the  real  Broad 
Sanctuary,  where  they  may  rest  in  peace,  and 
be  no  more  looked  upon  as  black  sheep,  sus- 
picious and  uncomfortable  characters,  the  "gen- 
tleman who  voted  for  Topsy  Turvey  at  the 
last  election,"  or  "  the  lady  who  doesn't  go  to 
church  on  Sundays."  In  town,  not  only  will 
their  errors  be  overlooked,  but  they  will  find 
scores  of  pleasant  and  reputable  persons  who 
share  the  worst  of  them  and  go  a  great  deal 
further,  and  in  whose  society  they  will  soon 
begin  to  feel  themselves  by  comparison  quite 
orthodox,  and  perhaps  rather  conservative 
characters. 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   215 

And  lastly,  besides  all  the  other  advantages 
of  London  which  I  have  recapitulated,  there 
is  one  of  which  very  little  note  is  ever  taken. 
If  many  sweet  and  beautiful  pleasures  are  lost 
by  living  there,  many  sharp  and  weary  pains 
also  therein  find  a  strange  anodyne.  There 
is  no  time  to  be  very  unhappy  in  London. 
Past  griefs  are  buried  away  under  the  surface, 
since  we  may  not  show  them  to  the  unsym- 
pathizing  eyes  around ;  and  present  cares  and 
sorrows  are  driven  into  dark  corners  of  the 
mind  by  the  crowd  of  busy  every-day  thoughts 
which  inevitably  take  their  place.  A  man 
may  feel  the  heart-ache  in  the  country,  and 
wander  mourning  by  the  solitary  shore  or 
amid  the  silent  winter  woods.  But  let  him  go, 
after  receiving  a  piece  of  sad  intelligence,  into 
the  busy  London  streets,  and  be  obliged  to 
pick  his  way  amid  the  crowd ;  to  pass  by  a 
score  of  brilliant  shops,  avoid  being  run  over 
by  an  omnibus,  give  a  penny  to  a  street- 
sweeper,  push  through  the  children  looking  at 
Punch,  close  his  ears  to  a  German  band,  hail 
a  hansom  and  drive  to  his  office  or  his  cham- 
bers,—  and  at  the  end  of  the  hour  how  many 
thoughts  will  he  have  given  to  his  sorrow? 

Before  it  has  had  time  to  sink  into  his  mind, 
many  days  of  similar  fuss  and  business  will 


2l6    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

have  intervened;  and  by  that  time  the  edge 
of  the  grief  will  be  dulled,  and  he  will  never 
experience  it  in  its  sharpness.  Of  the  influ- 
ence of  this  process,  continually  repeated,  on 
the  character,  a  good  deal  might  be  said ;  and 
there  may  be  certainly  room  to  doubt  whether 
thus  perpetually  shirking  all  the  more  serious 
and  solemn  passages  of  life  is  conducive  to  the 
higher  welfare.  After  we  have  suffered  a  good 
deal,  and  the  readiness  of  youth  to  encounter 
every  new  experience  and  drink  every  cup  to 
the  dregs  has  been  exchanged  for  the  dread 
of  strong  emotions  and  the  weariness  of  grief 
which  belong  to  later  years,  there  is  an  im- 
mense temptation  to  spare  our  own  hearts  as 
much  as  we  can ;  and  London  offers  the  very 
easiest  way,  without  any  failure  of  kindness, 
duty,  or  decorum,  to  effect  such  an  end. 
Nevertheless,  the  sacred  faculties  of  sympathy 
and  unselfish  sorrow  are  not  things  to  be 
lightly  tampered  with;  and  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  the  consequences  of  any  conscious  evasion 
of  their  claims  must  always  be  followed  by 
that  terrible  Nemesis,  the  hardening  of  our 
hearts  and  the  disbelief  in  the  sympathy  of 
our  neighbors.  We  have  made  love  and 
friendship  unreal  to  ourselves,  and  it  becomes 
impossible  to  continue  to  believe  they  are  real 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   21  / 

to  other  people.  Yet,  I  think,  if  the  shelter 
be  not  wilfully  or  intentionally  sought,  if  it 
merely  come  in  the  natural  course  of  things 
that  the  business  and  variety  of  town  life  pre- 
vent us  from  dwelling  on  sorrows  which  can- 
not be  lightened  by  our  care,  it  seems  a  better 
alternative  than  the  almost  infinite  durability 
and  emphasis  given  to  grief  in  the  monotonous 
life  of  the  country. 

If  these  be  the  advantages  of  Town  life, 
however,  there  are  to  be  set  against  them  many 
and  grievous  drawbacks.  First,  as  the  Country 
Mouse  justly  urges,  half  those  quickly  following 
sensations  and  ideas  which  constitute  the  highly- 
prized  rapidity  of  London  life  are  essentially 
disagreeable  in  themselves,  and  might  be  dis- 
pensed with  to  our  much  greater  comfort.  In 
the  country,  for  example,  out  of  fifty  sights, 
forty-nine  at  least  are  of  pretty  or  beautiful 
objects,  even  where  there  is  no  particularly  fine 
scenery.  Woods,  gardens,  rivers,  country  roads, 
cottages,  wagons,  ploughs,  cattle,  sheep,  and 
over  all,  always,  a  broad  expanse  of  the  blessed 
sky,  with  the  pomps  of  sunrises  and  sunsets,  and 
moonlight  nights  and  snow-clad  winter  days, — 
these  are  things  on  which  everywhere  (save  in 
the  Black  Country,  which  is  not  the  country  at  all) 
the  eye  rests  in  peace  and  delight.  In  the  town, 


2l8         TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

out  of  the  same  number  of  glances  of  our  tired 
eyeballs,  we  shall  probably  behold  a  score  of 
huge  advertisements,  a  line  of  hideous  houses 
with  a  butcher's  shop  as  the  most  prominent 
object,  an  omnibus  and  a  brewer's  dray,  a  score 
of  bricklayers  returning  (slightly  drunk)  from 
dinner,  and  a  handsome  carriage  with  the  unfort- 
unate horses  champing  their  gag-bits  in  agony 
from  their  tight  bearing-reins  while  the  coach- 
man flicks  them  with  his  whip.  In  the  country, 
again,  out  of  fifty  odors  the  great  majority  will 
be  of  fresh  herbage,  or  hay,  or  potato  or  bean 
fields,  or  of  newly  ploughed  ground,  or  burning 
weeds  or  turf.  In  the  town,  we  shall  endure  the 
sickly  smell  of  drains,  of  stale  fish,  of  raw  meat, 
of  carts  laden  with  bones  and  offal,  the  insuffer- 
able effluvium  of  the  city  cook-shops ;  and  last 
—  not  least  —  pervading  every  street  and  shop 
and  park,  puffed  eternally  in  our  faces,  the  vilest 
tobacco.  And  finally,  in  the  country,  our  ears 
are  no  less  soothed  and  flattered  than  our  senses 
of  smelling  and  sight.  The  golden  silence  when 
broken  at  all  is  disturbed  only  by  the  noise  of 
running  waters,  of  cattle  lowing,  sheep  bleating, 
thrushes  and  larks  and  cuckoos  singing,  rooks 
cawing  on  the  return  home  at  evening,  or  the 
exquisite  "  sough  "  of  the  night  wind  as  it  passes 
over  the  sleeping  woods  as  in  a  dream.  In  the 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   2 19 

town,  we  have  the  relentless  roar  and  rattle  of  a 
thousand  carts,  cabs,  drags,  and  omnibuses,  the 
perpetual  grinding  of  organs  and  hurdy-gurdies, 
the  unintelligible  and  ear-piercing  cries  of  the 
costermongers  in  the  streets,  and  generally,  to 
complete  our  misery,  the  jangle  of  a  pianoforte 
heard  through  the  thin  walls  of  our  house,  as  if 
there  were  no  partitions  between  us  and  the 
detestable  children  who  thump  through  their 
scales  and  polkas  for  six  hours  out  of  the  twenty- 
four.  Such  are  the  sufferings  of  the  senses 
in  London, —  surely  worth  setting  against  the 
luxuries  it  is  supposed  to  comand,  but  which 
it  only  commands  for  the  rich,  whereas  neither 
rich  nor  poor  have  any  immunity  from  the  ugly 
sights,  ugly  smells,  and  ugly  noises  wherewith 
it  abounds.  But,  beyond  these  mortifications 
of  the  flesh,  London  entails  on  its  thorough- 
going votaries  a  heavier  punishment.  Sooner 
or  later  on  every  one  who  really  works  in 
London  there  comes  a  certain  pain,  half 
physical,  half  mental,  which  seems  to  have  its 
bodily  seat  somewhere  about  the  diaphragm, 
and  its  mental  place  between  our  feelings  and 
our  intellect, —  a  sense,  not  of  being  tired  and 
wanting  rest,  for  that  is  the  natural  and  whole- 
some alternative  of  all  strong  and  sustained 
exercise  of  our  faculties,  but  of  being  "like 


22O    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

dumb  driven  cattle,"  and  of  having  neither 
power  to  go  on  nor  to  stop.  We  seem  to  be 
under  some  slave-master  who  whips  us  here 
and  there,  and  forbids  us  to  sit  down  and  take 
breath.  We  want  fresh  air,  but  our  walks 
through  the  crowded  streets  or  parks  only 
add  fatigue  to  our  eyes  and  weariness  and 
excitement  to  our  brains.  We  need  food,  but 
it  does  us  little  good ;  and  sleep,  but  we 
waken  up  before  half  the  night  is  past  with  our 
brains  busy  already  with  the  anxieties  of  the 
morrow.  We  are  conscious  we  are  using  up 
brains,  eyesight,  health,  everything  which  makes 
life  worth  possessing,  and  yet  we  are  entangled 
in  such  a  mesh  of  engagements  and  duties  that 
we  cannot  break  loose.  We  can  only  break 
down;  and  that  is  what  we  pretty  surely  do 
when  this  state  of  things  has  lasted  a  little  too 
long. 

Perhaps  the  reader  is  inclined  to  say,  Why 
not  try  the  golden  mean,  the  compromise  be- 
tween town  and  country,  to  be  found  in  some 
rus  in  urbe  in  Fulham  or  Hampstead,  or  a  villa 
a  little  way  further,  at  Richmond  or  Norwood 
or  Wimbledon  ?  I  beg  leave  humbly  to  con- 
tend that  the  venerable  Aristotelian  "  Meson  " 
is  as  great  a  mistake  in  geography  as  in  ethics, 
and  that  it  will  be  generally  found  that  people 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE       221 

adopting  the  Half-way  House  system  of  lodge- 
ment will  be  disposed  to  repeat  the  celebrated 
Scotch  ode  with  slight  variations.  "  Their 
heart  is  "  -  in  London  ;  "  their  heart  is  not,"  — 
by  any  means,  in  Hampstead  or  Twickenham. 
Their  days  are  spent  either  in  waiting  at  rail- 
way stations  to  go  in  or  out  of  town,  or  in  the 
yet  more  tantalizing  anticipation  of  friends  who 
have  promised  to  "  give  them  a  day,"  and  for 
whom  they  have  provided  the  modern  substi- 
tute for  the  fatted  calf,  but  who,  on  the  par- 
ticular morning  of  their  engagement,  are  sure 
to  be  swept  off  their  consciences  by  an  unex- 
pected ticket  for  the  opera,  which  they  "  could 
not  enjoy  if  they  had  gone  so  far  in  the  morn- 
ing as  dear  Mr.  A.'s  delightful  villa."  Of 
course,  it  is  possible  to  live  in  the  outer  circle 
of  real  London,  and  have  fresh  air  and  compar- 
ative quiet,  infinitely  valuable.  But  he  who 
goes  further  afield,  the  ambitious  soul  who 
dreams  of  cocks  and  hens,  or  even  soars  to  a 
paddock  and  a  cow,  is  destined  to  disillusion 
and  despair.  He  tries  to  "  make  the  best  of 
both  worlds,"  and  he  gets  the  worst  of  both. 
The  genuine  Londoner  considers  his  proffers 
of  hospitality  as  an  imposition  ;  and  the  gen- 
uine country  cousin  is  indignant,  on  accepting 
them,  to  find  how  far  is  his  residence  from  the 


222          TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

exhibitions  and  the  shops.  His  trees  are  black, 
his  roses  cankered,  and  his  soul  imbittered  by 
the  defalcations  of  friends,  the  blunders  and 
extortions  of  cabmen,  and  his  own  infructuous 
effort  to  be  always  in  two  places  at  once. 

Nor  is  the  second  and,  apparently,  more 
facile  resource  of  the  tired  Londoner  —  that  of 
quartering  himself  on  his  kind  country  friends 
for  his  holidays  —  very  much  more  successful. 
The  country  would  indeed  be  delightful  for  our 
Christmas  fortnight  or  our  Easter  or  Whitsun- 
tide week,  if  we  were  permitted  to  enjoy  in  it 
that  repose  we  so  urgently  need  and  so  fondly 
seek.  We  are  quite  enamoured,  when  we  first 
turn  our  steps  from  the  smoky  city,  with  the 
trees  and  fields ;  and  we  enjoy  indescribably 
our  rides  and  drives  and  walks,  the  varied  as- 
pects of  nature,  and  the  beasts  and  birds  where- 
with we  are  surrounded.  But  one  thing  we 
have  not  bargained  for,  and  that  is — country 
Society.  Of  course  we  love  our  friends  and 
relations  in  whose  homes  we  are  received  with 
kindness  and  affection,  whom  we  know  to  be 
the  salt  of  the  earth  for  goodness,  and  who  love 
us  enough  to  feel  an  interest  even  in  our  towni- 
est  gossip.  But  their  country  friends,  the  neigh- 
boring gentlefolk,  the  clergyman's  wife,  the 
family  doctor,  the  people  who  are  invariably 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   223 

invited  to  meet  us  at  the  long  formal  country 
dinner  !  This  is  the  trial  beneath  which  our 
new-found  love  of  rural  life  is  apt  to  succumb. 
Sir  Cornewall  Lewis's  too  famous  dictum  re- 
turns, slightly  modified,  to  our  memories  — 
As  "life  would  be  tolerable  but  for  its  pleas- 
ures," so  the  country  would  be  enchanting, 
were  it  not  for  its  society.  Could  we  be 
allowed  to  live  in  the  country,  and  see  only 
our  hosts,  we  should  be  as  happy  as  kings  and 
queens.  But  to  fly,  for  the  sake  of  rest  and 
quiet,  from  the  tables  where  we  might  have  met 
some  of  the  most  brilliant  men  and  women  of 
the  day,  and  then  to  find  that  we  shall  incur 
the  disgrace  of  being  unsociable  curmudgeons 
if  we  object  to  spend  the  afternoon  in  playing 
tennis  with  the  rector's  stupid  daughters,  and 
to  dine  afterwards  at  the  house  of  a  particularly 
dull  and  vulgar  neighbor  with  whom  we  would 
fain  avoid  such  acquaintance  as  may  justify 
him  in  visiting  us  in  town,  this  is  surely  an  evil 
destiny !  When,  alas !  will  all  the  good  and 
kind  people  who  invite  town  friends  to  come 
and  rest  with  them  in  the  country  forbear  to 
make  their  acceptance  the  occasion  for  a  round 
of  rural  dissipation,  and  believe  that  their  weary 
brother  would  be  only  too  glad,  did  civility  per- 
mit, to  inscribe  on  the  door  of  his  bedroom 


224    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

during  his  sojourn  the  affecting  Italian  epitaph, 
Imp  lor  a  pace  ! 

The  Country  Mouse  has  naturally  said  as 
little  as  possible  of  the  drawbacks  of  his  favorite 
mode  of  existence, —  metaphorically  speaking, 
the  dampness  of  his  "  Hollow  Tree,"  and  its 
liability  to  be  infested  by  Owls.  It  may  be 
well  to  jot  off  a  few  of  the  less  recognized 
offsets  to  the  pleasures  of  rural  life  before  lis- 
tening to  any  eulogies  thereof. 

The  real  evil  of  country  life  I  apprehend  is 
this:  the  whole  happiness  or  misery  of  it  is  so 
terribly  dependent  on  the  character  of  those 
with  whom  we  live  that,  if  we  are  not  so  fort- 
unate as  to  have  for  our  companions  the  best 
and  dearest,  wisest  and  pleasantest,  of  men  and 
women  (in  which  case  we  may  be  far  happier 
than  in  any  other  life  in  the  world),  we  are 
infinitely  worse  off  than  we  can  ever  be  in 
town.  One,  two,  or  perhaps  three  relatives  and 
friends,  who  form  our  permanent  housemates, 
make  or  mar  all  our  days  by  their  good  or  evil 
tempers,  their  agreeability  or  stupidity,  their 
affection  and  confidence,  or  their  dislike  and 
jealousy.  Eire  avec  les  gens  quon  aime,  cela 
suffit,  says  Rousseau ;  and  he  speaks  truth.  But 
etre  avec  les  gens  quon  riaime  pas,  and  buried 
in  a  dull  country  house  with  them,  without  any 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE       2 25 

prospect  of  change,  is  as  bad  as  having  a  mill- 
stone tied  round  our  necks  and  being  drowned 
in  the  depth  of  the  sea.  In  a  town  house,  if 
the  fathers  and  sons,  mothers  and  daughters, 
scold  and  wrangle,  if  the  husband  be  a  bear  or 
the  wife  a  shrew,  there  is  always  the  refuge  of 
the  outer  circle  of  acquaintances  wherein  cheer 
and  comfort,  or,  at  least,  variety  and  relief,  may 
be  found.  Reversing  the  pious  Dr.  Watts's 
maxim,  we  cry, — 

"  Whatever  brawls  disturb  the  home, 
Let  peace  be  in  the  street." 

The  Club  is  the  shelter  of  henpecked  man; 
a  friend's  house,  or  Marshall  and  Snellgrove's, 
the  refuge  of  a  cockpecked  woman.  On  the 
stormiest  domestic  debate,  the  advent  of  a 
visitor  intervenes,  throwing  temporary  oil  on 
the  waters,  and  compelling  the  belligerents  to 
put  off  their  quarrels  and  put  on  their  smiles; 
and,  when  the  unconscious  peacemaker  has  de- 
parted, it  is  often  found  difficult,  if  not  impos- 
sible, to  take  up  the  squabble  just  where  it  was 
left  off.  But  there  is  no  such  luck  for  cross- 
grained  people  in  country  houses.  Humboldt's 
"Cosmos  "  contains  several  references  to  cer- 
tain observations  made  by  two  gentlemen  who 
passed  a  winter  together  on  the  inhospitable 


226          TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

northern  shores  of  Asia,  and  one  of  whom  bore 
the  alarming  name  of  Wrangle.  It  is  difficult 
to  imagine  any  trial  more  severe  than  that  of 
spending  the  six  dark  months  of  the  year  with 
Wrangle  on  the  Siberian  coast  of  the  Polar  Sea. 
But  this  is  a  mere  fancy  sketch,  whereas  hun- 
dreds of  unlucky  English  men  and  women 
spend  their  winters  every  year  in  country 
houses,  limited,  practically,  to  the  society  of  a 
Mr.  or  a  Mrs.  Wrangle  who  makes  life  a  burden 
by  everlasting  fault-finding,  squabbling,  worry, 
suspicion,  jar,  and  jolt.  As  regards  children 
or  dependent  people  or  the  wives  of  despotic 
husbands,  the  case  is  often  worse  than  this. 
By  a  terrible  law  of  our  nature,  an  unkindness, 
harshness,  or  injustice  done  once  to  any  one  has 
a  frightful  tendency  to  produce  hatred  of  the 
victim  (I  have  elsewhere  called  the  passion 
heteropathy)  and  a  restlessness  to  heap  wrong 
on  wrong,  and  accusation  upon  accusation,  to 
justify  the  first  fault.  Woe  to  the  hapless  step- 
child or  orphan  nephew  or  penniless  cousin,  or 
helpless  and  aged  mother-in-law,  who  falls  under 
this  terrible  destiny  in  a  country  house  where 
there  are  few  eyes  to  witness  the  cruelty  and 
no  tongue  bold  enough  to  denounce  it !  The 
misery  endured  by  such  beings,  the  poor  young 
souls  which  wither  under  the  blight  of  the  per- 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE       22 7 

petual  unmerited  blame,  and  the  older  sufferers 
mortified  and  humiliated  in  their  age,  must  be 
quite  indescribable.  Perhaps  by  no  human  act 
can  truer  charity  be  done  than  by  resolutely 
affording  moral  support,  if  we  can  do  no  more, 
to  such  butts  and  victims;  and,  if  it  be  possible, 
to  take  them  altogether  away  out  of  their  ill- 
omened  conditions,  and  "deliver  him  that  is 
oppressed  from  the  hand  of  the  adversary."  It 
is  astonishing  how  much  may  be  done  by  very 
humble  spectators  to  put  a  check  to  evils  like 
these,  even  by  merely  showing  their  own  sur- 
prise and  distress  in  witnessing  them ;  and,  on 
the  contrary,  how  deplorably  ready  are  nine 
people  out  of  ten  to  fall  in  with  the  established 
prejudices  and  unkindnesses  of  every  house 
they  enter. 

Very  little  of  this  kind  of  thing  goes  on  in 
towns.  People  are  too  busy  about  their  own 
affairs  and  pleasures,  and  their  feelings  of  all 
kinds  are  too  much  diffused  among  the  in- 
numerable men  and  women  with  whom  they 
come  in  contact,  to  permit  of  concentrated 
dislike  settling  down  on  any  inmate  of  their 
homes  in  the  thick  cloud  it  is  apt  to  do  in  the 
country. 

Here  we  touch,  indeed,  on  one  great  secret 
of  the  difference  of  Town  and  Country  life. 


228    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

All  sentiments,  amiable  and  unamiable,  are 
more  are  less  dissipated  in  town,  and  concen- 
trated and  deepened  in  the  country.  Even  a 
very  trifling  annoyance,  an  arrangement  of 
hours  of  meals  too  late  or  too  early  for  our 
health,  a  smoky  chimney,  a  bad  coachman,  a 
door  below  stairs  perpetually  banged,  assumes 
a  degree  of  importance  when  multiplied  by  the 
infinite  number  of  times  we  expect  to  endure 
it  in  the  limitless  monotony  of  country  life. 
Our  nerves  become  in  advance  irritated  by  all 
we  expect  to  go  through  in  the  future,  and  the 
consequence  is  that  a  degree  of  heat  enters 
into  family  disputes  about  such  matters  which 
greatly  amazes  the  parties  concerned  to  remem- 
ber when  the  wear  and  tear  of  travel  or  of 
town  life  have  made  the  whole  mode  of  exist- 
ence in  a  country  home  seem  a  placid  stream, 
with  scarcely  a  pebble  to  stir  a  ripple. 

And  now,  at  last,  let  us  begin  to  seek  out 
wherein  lie  the  more  hidden  delights  of  the 
country  life ;  the  violets  under  the  hedge  which 
sweeten  all  the  air,  but  remain  half-unobserved 
even  by  those  who  would  fain  gather  up  the 
flowers.  We  return  in  thought  to  one  of  those 
old  homes,  bosomed  in  its  ancestral  trees  and 
with  the  work-day  world  far  enough  away  be- 
hind the  park  palings  so  that  the  sound  of 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   2 29 

wheels  is  never  heard  save  when  some  friend 
approaches  by  the  smooth-rolled  avenue.  What 
is  the  key-note  of  the  life  led  by  the  men  and 
women  who  have  grown  from  childhood  to 
manhood  and  womanhood  in  such  a  place,  and 
then  drop  slowly  down  the  long  years  which 
will  lead  them  surely  at  last  to  that  bed  in  the 
green  churchyard  close  by,  where  they  shall 
"  sleep  with  their  fathers  "  ?  That  "  note  "  seems 
to  me  to  be  a  peculiar  sense — exceeding  that 
of  mere  calmness  —  of  stability,  of  a  repose  of 
which  neither  beginning  nor  end  is  in  sight. 
Instead  of  a  "  changeful  world,"  this  is  to  them 
a  world  where  no  change  comes,  or  comes  so 
slowly  as  to  be  imperceptible.  Almost  every- 
thing which  the  eye  rests  upon  in  such  a  home 
is  already  old,  and  will  endure  for  years  to  come, 
probably  long  after  its  present  occupants  are 
under  the  sod.  The  house  itself  was  built 
generations  since,  and  its  thick  walls  look  as 
if  they  would  defy  the  inroads  of  time.  The 
rooms  were  furnished,  one,  perhaps,  at  the 
father's  marriage ;  another,  tradition  tells  us,  by 
a  famous  great-grandmother;  the  halls  —  no 
one  remembers  by  whom  or  how  long  ago. 
The  old  trees  bear  on  their  boles  the  initials  of 
many  a  name  which  has  been  inscribed  long 
years  also  on  the  churchyard  stones.  The  gar- 


230          TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

den,  with  its  luxuriant  old-fashioned  flowers  and 
clipped  box  borders  and  quaint  sun-dial,  has 
been  a  garden  so  long  that  the  rich  soil  bears 
blossoms  with  twice  the  perfume  of  other 
flowers ;  and,  as  we  pace  along  the  broad  ter- 
raced walks  in  the  twilight,  the  odors  of  the 
well-remembered  bushes  of  lavender  and  jessa- 
mine and  cistus  (each  growing  where  it  has 
stood  since  we  were  born)  fall  on  our  senses 
like  the  familiar  note  of  some  dear  old  tune. 
The  very  sounds  of  the  landrail  in  the  grass, 
the  herons  shrieking  among  their  nests,  the 
rooks  darkening  the  evening  sky,  the  cattle 
driven  in  to  milking  and  lowing  as  they  go,  all 
in  some  way  suggest  the  sense,  not  of  restless- 
ness and  turmoil  like  the  noises  of  the  town, 
but  of  calm  and  repose  and  the  unchanging 
order  of  an  "  abode  of  ancient  Peace." 

Then  the  habits  of  the  owners  of  such  old 
seats  are  sure  to  fall  into  a  sort  of  rhyme. 
There  are  the  lesser  beats  at  intervals  through 
the  long  day,  when  the  early  laborer's  bell,  and 
the  gong  at  nine  o'clock,  and  one  o'clock,  and 
seven  o'clock,  sound  the  call  to  prayers  and  to 
meals.  And  there  are  the  weekly  beats,  when 
Sunday  makes  the  beautiful  refrain  of  the 
psalm  of  life.  And  yet  again  there  are  the 
half-yearly  summer  strophe  and  winter  anti- 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   23! 

strophe  of  habits  of  each  season,  taken  up  and 
laid  down  with  unfailing  punctuality,  while  the 
family  life  oscillates  like  a  pendulum  between 
the  first  of  May,  which  sees  the  domestic 
exodus  into  the  fresh,  vast  old  drawing-room, 
and  the  first  of  November,  which  brings  the 
return  into  the  warm,  oak-panelled  library. 
To  violate  or  alter  these  long-established  rules 
and  precedents  scarcely  enters  into  the  head  of 
any  one,  and  the  child  hears  the  old  servants 
(themselves  the  most  dear  and  permanent  insti- 
tutions of  all)  speak  of  them  almost  as  if  they 
were  so  many  laws  of  nature.  Thus  he  finds 
life  from  the  very  beginning  set  for  him  to  a 
kind  of  music,  simple  and  beautiful  in  its  way; 
and  he  learns  to  think  that  "  Order  is  Heaven's 
first  law,"  and  that  change  will  never  come  over 
the  placid  tenor  of  existence.  The  difficulty 
to  him  is  to  realize  in  after  years  that  any 
vicissitudes  have  really  taken  place  in  the  old 
home,  that  it  has  changed  owners,  or  that  the 
old  order  has  given  place  to  new.  He  almost 
feels  —  thinking  perhaps  of  his  mother  in  her 
wonted  seat  —  that  Shelley's  dreamy  philoso- 
phy must  be  true 

"  That  garden  sweet,  that  lady  fair, 
And  all  bright  shapes  and  odors  there, 
In  truth  have  never  passed  away  : 
'Tis  we,  'tis  ours,  have  changed,  not  they." 


232          TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

The  anticipation  of  perpetual  variety  and 
change  which  is  the  lesson  commonly  taught 
to  children  by  town-life, —  the  Micawber-like 
expectation  of  "  something  turning  up,"  to 
amuse  or  distract  them,  and  for  which  they  are 
constantly  in  a  waiting  frame  of  mind,  is  pre- 
cisely reversed  for  the  little  scion  of  the  old 
country  family.  For  him  nothing  is  ever 
likely  to  turn  up  beyond  the  ordinary  vicis- 
situdes of  fair  weather  and  foul,  the  sickness  of 
his  pony,  the  death  of  his  old  dog  or  the  arrival 
of  his  new  gun.  All  that  is  to  be  made  out  of 
life  he  invents  for  himself  in  his  sports  and 
in  his  rambles,  till  the  hour  arrives  when  he  is 
sent  to  school.  And  when  the  epochs  of  school 
and  college  are  over,  when  he  returns  as  heir 
or  master,  life  lays  all  spread  out  before  him  in 
a  long,  straight,  honorable  road,  all  his  duties 
and  his  pleasures  lying  by  the  wayside,  ready 
for  his  acceptance.  For  the  girl  there  is  often 
even  longer  and  more  unbroken  monotony, 
lasting  (unless  she  marry)  into  early  woman- 
hood and  beyond  it.  Nothing  can  exceed  the 
eventlessness  of  many  a  young  lady's  life  in  such 
a  home.  Her  walks  to  her  village  school,  or  to 
visit  her  cottage  friends  in  their  sicknesses  and 
disasters  ;  her  rides  and  drives  along  the  famil- 
iar roads  which  she  has  ridden  and  driven  over 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE      233 

five  hundred  times  already ;  the  arrival  of  a 
new  book,  or  of  some  old  friend  (more  often  her 
parent's  contemporary  than  her  own), —  make 
up  the  sum  of  her  excitements,  or  even  expec- 
tations of  excitement,  perhaps,  through  all  the 
years  when  youth  is  most  eager  for  novelty, 
and  the  outer  world  seems  an  enchanted  place. 
The  effects  on  the  character  of  this  extreme 
regularity  and  monotony,  this  life  at  Low  Press- 
ure, vary,  of  course,  in  different  individuals. 
Upon  a  dull  mind  without  motu  proprio  or 
spring  of  original  ideas,  it  is,  naturally,  depress- 
ing enough ;  but  it  is  far  from  equally  injurious 
to  those  possessed  of  some  force  of  character, 
provided  they  meet  the  affection  and  reason- 
able indulgence  of  liberty  without  which  the 
heart  and  intellect  can  no  more  develop  health- 
fully than  a  baby  can  thrive  without  milk,  or  a 
child's  limbs  grow  agile  in  swaddling  clothes. 
The  young  mind  slowly  working  out  its  prob- 
lems for  itself,  unwarped  by  the  influence  (so 
enormous  in  youth)  of  thoughtless  companions, 
and  devouring  the  great  books  of  the  world,  fer- 
reted out  of  a  miscellaneous  library  by  its  own 
eager  appetite  and  self-guided  taste,  is  perhaps 
ripening  in  a  healthier  way  than  the  best 
taught  town  child,  with  endless  "  classes  "  and 
masters  for  every  accomplishment  under  the 


234         TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE 

sun.  Even  the  imagination  is  better  cultivated 
in  loneliness,  when  the  child,  through  its  sol- 
itary rambles  by  wood  and  shore,  spins  its 
gossamer  webs  of  fancy,  and  invents  tales  of 
heroism  and  wonder  such  as  no  melodrama  or 
pantomime  ever  yet  brought  to  the  town  child's 
exhausted  brain.  Then  the  affections  of  the 
country  child  are  concentrated  on  their  few 
objects  with  a  passionate  warmth  of  which  the 
feelings  of  the  town  child,  dissipated  amidst 
scores  of  friends  and  admirers,  affords  no 
measure  whatever.  The  admiration  amounting 
to  worship  paid  by  many  a  little  lonely  girl  to 
some  older  woman  who  represents  to  her  all 
of  grace  and  goodness  she  has  yet  dreamed, 
and  who  descends  every  now  and  then  from 
some  far-off  Elysium  to  be  a  guest  in  her  home, 
is  one  of  the  least  read  and  yet  surely  one  of 
the  prettiest  chapters  of  innocent  human  senti- 
ment. As  to  the  graver  and  more  durable 
affections  nourished  in  the  old  home, —  the  fond 
attachment  of  brothers  and  sisters,  the  rever- 
ence for  the  father,  the  love,  purest  and 
deepest  of  all  earthly  loves,  of  mother  for  child 
and  child  for  mother, —  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  their  growth  in  the  calm,  sweet  country  life 
must  be  healthier  and  deeper  rooted  than  it  can 
well  be  elsewhere. 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE      235 

And  finally,  almost  certainly,  such  a  peaceful 
and  solitary  youth  soon  enters  the  deeper 
waters  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  life,  and 
breathes  religious  aspirations  which  have  in 
them,  in  those  early  years,  the  freshness  and 
the  holiness  of  the  morning.  Happy  and  good 
must,  indeed,  be  that  later  life  from  the  heights 
of  which  any  man  or  woman  can  dare  to  look 
back  on  one  of  these  lonely  childhoods  without 
a  covering  of  the  face.  Talk  of  hermitages 
or  monasteries  !  The  real  nursery  of  religion 
is  one  of  these  old  English  homes,  where  every 
duty  is  natural,  easy,  beautiful ;  where  the  pleas- 
ures are  so  calm,  so  innocent,  so  interwoven 
with  the  duties  that  the  one  need  scarcely 
be  defined  from  the  other;  and  where  the 
spectacle  of  Nature's  loveliness  is  forever  sug- 
gesting the  thought  of  Him  who  built  the  blue 
dome  of  heaven,  and  scattered  over  all  the 
ground  his  love-tokens  of  flowers.  The  happy 
child  dwelling  in  such  a  home,  with  a  father  and 
mother  who  speak  to  it  sometimes  of  God  and 
the  life  to  come,  but  do  not  attempt  to  intrude 
into  that  Holy  of  Holies,  a  young  soul's  love 
and  penitence  and  resolution,  is  the  place  on 
earth,  perhaps,  best  fitted  to  nourish  the  flame 
of  religion.  Of  the  cruelty  and  wickedness 
and  meanness  of  the  world  the  child  hears  only 


236    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

as  of  the  wild  beasts  or  poisonous  reptiles  who 
may  roam  or  crawl  in  African  deserts.  They  are 
too  far  off  to  force  themselves  on  the  attention 
as  dreadful  problems  of  the  Sphinx  to  be  solved 
on  pain  of  moral  death.  Even  sickness,  poverty, 
and  death  appear  oftenest  as  occasions  for  the 
kindly  and  helpful  sympathy  of  parents  and 
guides. 

To  turn  to  lighter  matters.  Of  course 
among  the  first  recognized  pleasures  of  the 
country  is  the  constant  intercourse  with,  or 
rather  bathing  in,  Nature.  We  are  up  to  the 
lips  in  the  ocean  of  fresh  air,  grass,  and  trees. 
It  is  not  one  beautiful  object  or  another  which 
attracts  us  (as  sometimes  happens  in  town),  but, 
without  being  interrupted  by  thinking  of  them 
individually,  they  influence  us  en  masse.  Dame 
Nature  has  taken  us  on  her  lap,  and  soothes  us 
with  her  own  lullaby.  Probably,  on  the  whole, 
country  folks  admire  each  separate  view  and 
scrap  of  landscape  less  than  their  visitors  from 
the  town,  and  criticise  it  as  little  as  school-boys 
do  their  mother's  dress.  But  they  love  Nature 
as  a  whole,  and  her  real  influence  appears  in 
their  genial  characters,  their  healthy  nervous 
systems,  and  their  optimistic  opinions.  Nor  is 
it  by  any  means  only  inanimate  nature  where- 
with they  are  concerned.  Not  to  speak  of 


TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE   237 

their  poorer  neighbors  (of  whom  they  know 
much  more,  and  with  whom  they  usually  live 
in  far  more  kindly  relations  than  townsfolk  with 
theirs),  they  have  incessant  concern  with  brutes 
and  birds.  How  much,  to  some  of  us,  the 
leisurely  watching  of  stately  cattle,  gentle 
sheep,  and  playful  lambs,  the  riding  and  driv- 
ing of  generous,  kindly-natured  horses  and  the 
companionship  of  loving  dogs,  add  to  the  sum 
of  the  day's  pleasures  and  tune  the  mind  to 
its  happiest  keynote,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
define.  For  my  own  part,  I  have  never  ceased 
to  wonder  how  Christian  divines  have  been  able 
to  picture  Heaven  and  leave  it  wholly  un- 
peopled by  animals.  Even  for  their  own  sakes 
(not  to  speak  of  justice  to  the  oft  ill-treated 
brutes),  would  they  not  have  desired  to  give 
their  humble  companions  some  little  corner  in 
their  boundless  sky  ?  A  place  with  perpetual 
music  going  on  and  not  a  single  animal  to 
caress, —  even  those  which  Mahomet  promised 
his  followers, —  his  own  camel,  Balaam's  ass, 
\nd  Tobit's  dog, —  would,  I  think,  be  a  very 
incomplete  and  unpleasant  paradise  indeed  ! 

It  has  often  been  said  that  the  passion  of 
Englishmen  for  field  sports  is  really  due  to  this 
love  of  Nature  and  of  animals;  that,  like  sheep- 
dogs (who,  when  they  are  not  trained  to  guard 


238    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

sheep,  will,  by  an  irresistible  impulse,  follow 
and  harry  them),  they  feel  compelled  to  have 
something  to  do  with  hares  and  foxes  and  par- 
tridges and  grouse,  and  salmon  ;  and  they  find 
that  the  only  thing  to  be  done  is  to  course  and 
hunt  and  shoot  and  angle  for  them.  Into  this 
mystery  I  cannot  dive.  The  propensity  which 
can  make  kind-hearted  men  (as  many  sports- 
men unquestionably  are)  not  merely  endure  to 
kill,  but  actually  take  pleasure  in  killing,  inno- 
cent living  things,  and  changing  what  is  so 
beautiful  in  life  and  joy  into  what  is  so  ineffably 
sad  and  piteous,  wounded  and  dying,  remains 
always  to  me  utterly  incomprehensible.  But  it 
is  simply  a  fact  that  lads  trained  from  boyhood 
to  take  pleasure  in  such  "  sports,"  and  having, 
I  doubt  not,  an  "  hereditary  set  of  the  brain  " 
towards  them,  like  so  many  greyhounds  or 
pointers,  never  feel  the  ribrezzo,  or  the  remorse, 
of  the  bird  or  beast  murderer,  but,  escaping  all 
reflection,  triumph  in  their  own  skill,  and  at 
the  same  time  enjoy  the  woods  and  fields  and 
river-sides  where  their  quarry  leads  them.  To 
do  them  justice, —  as  against  many  efforts  lately 
made  to  confound  them  with  torturers  of  a  very 
different  class, —  they  know  little  of  the  pain 
they  inflict,  and  they  endeavor  eagerly  to  make 
that  pain  as  brief  as  possible.  Nevertheless, 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE      239 

Sport  is  an  inexplicable  passion  to  the  non- 
sporting  mind;  and,  moreover,  one  not  very 
easy  to  contemplate  with  philosophical  for- 
bearance, much  less  with  admiration. 

A  larger  source  of  wonder  is  it  to  reflect 
that  this  same  unaccountable  passion  for  kill- 
ing pheasants  and  pursuing  foxes  has  so  deep 
a  root  in  English  life  that  its  arrest  and  dis- 
appointment by  such  a  change  of  the  Game 
laws  as  would  lead  to  the  abolition  of  game 
would  practically  revolutionize  all  our  man- 
ners. The  attraction  of  the  towns  already 
preponderates  over  that  of  the  country;  but 
till  lately  the  grouse  have  had  the  honor  of 
proroguing  annually  the  British  Senate,  and 
the  partridges,  the  pheasants,  the  woodcocks, 
and  the  foxes  induce  pretty  nearly  every  man 
who  can  afford  to  shoot  or  hunt  them  to 
bring  his  family  to  the  country  during  the 
season  wherein  they  are  to  be  pursued.  Of 
course  women,  left  to  themselves,  would 
mostly  choose  to  spend  their  winters  in  town, 
and  their  summers  from  May  till  November 
in  the  country.  But  Sport  determines  the 
Session  of  Parliament,  and  the  Session  de- 
termines the  season;  and,  as  women  love  the 
London  Season  quite  as  much  as  men  like  fox- 
hunting, both  parties  are  equally  bound  to  the 


240         TOWN    MOUSE   AND   COUNTRY   MOUSE 

same  unfortunate  division  of  time,  and  year 
after  year  passes,  and  the  lilacs  and  labur- 
nums and  hawthorns  and  limes  in  the  old 
country  homes  waste  their  loveliness  and  their 
sweetness  unseen,  while  the  little  children  pine 
in  Belgravian  and  South  Kensington  mansions 
when  they  ought  to  be  romping  among  their 
father's  hay-fields  and  galloping  their  ponies 
about  his  park.  All  these  arrangements,  and, 
further,  the  vast  establishments  of  horses  and 
hounds,  the  enormous  expenditure  on  guns 
and  game-keepers  and  beaters  and  game-pre- 
serving,—  the  sole  business  of  thousands  of 
workingmen,  and  the  principal  occupation  and 
interest  of  half  the  gentlemen  in  the  country, 
—  would  be  swept  away  by  a  stroke. 

By  some  such  change  as  this,  or,  more  prob- 
ably, by  the  pressure  of  a  hundred  sources  of 
change,  it  is  probable,  nay,  it  is  certain,  that 
the  old  form  of  country  life  (which  I  have  been 
describing,  perhaps,  rather  as  it  was  a  few  years 
ago  than  it  is  now)  will  pass  away  and  become 
a  thing  of  memory.  When  that  time  arrives,  I 
cannot  but  think  that  England  and  the  world 
will  lose  a  phase  of  human  existence  which, 
with  all  its  lights  and  shadows,  has  been,  per- 
haps, the  most  beautiful  and  perfect  yet  realized 
on  earth.  Certainly,  it  has  offered  to  many  a 


TOWN    MOUSE   AND   COUNTRY   MOUSE      24! 

happiness,  pure,  stable,  dignified,  and  blame- 
less, such  as  it  will  be  hard  to  parallel  in  any 
of  the  novel  types  of  high  pressure  modern 
life. 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  nothing  so 
mournful  as  the  life  of  an  old  ancestral  home 
in  the  country !  Everything  reminds  us  of  the 
lost,  the  dead  who  once  called  these  stately 
chambers  their  habitations,  whose  voices  once 
echoed  through  the  halls,  and  for  whose  famil- 
iar tread  we  seem  yet  to  wait ;  whose  entrance, 
as  of  yore,  through  one  of  the  lofty  doors  would 
scarcely  surprise  us ;  whom  we  almost  expect, 
when  we  return  after  long  absence,  to  see 
rising  from  their  accustomed  seats  with  open 
arms  to  embrace  us,  as  in  the  days  gone  by. 
The  trees  they  planted,  the  walks  and  flower- 
beds they  designed ;  the  sword  which  the  father 
brought  back  from  his  early  service;  the  tapes- 
try the  mother  wrought  through  her  long  years 
of  declining  health ;  the  dog  grown  blind  and 
old,  the  companion  of  walks  which  shall  never 
be  taken  again ;  the  instrument  which  once 
answered  to  a  sweet  touch  forever  still, —  these 
things  make  us  feel  Death  and  change  as  we 
never  feel  them  amid  the  instability  and  eager 
interests  of  town  existence.  All  things  remain 
as  of  old  "  since  the  fathers  fell  asleep."  The 


242    TOWN  MOUSE  AND  COUNTRY  MOUSE 

leaves  of  the  woods  come  afresh  and  then  fade ; 
the  rooks  come  cawing  home ;  the  church  bells 
ring,  and  the  old  clock  strikes  the  hour.  Only 
there  is  one  chair  pushed  a  little  aside  from  its 
wonted  place,  an  old  horse  turned  out  to  graze 
in  peace  for  his  latter  days ;  a  bedroom  up- 
stairs into  which  no  one  goes,  save  in  silent 
hours,  unwatched  and  furtively. 

As  time  goes  by,  and  one  after  another  of 
those  who  made  youth  blessed  have  dropped 
away,  and  we  begin  to  count  the  years  of  those 
who  remain,  and  watch  gray  hairs  thickening 
on  heads  we  remember  golden,  and  talk  of  the 
hopes  and  ambitions  of  early  days  as  things  of 
the  past, —  things  which  might  have  been,  but 
now,  we  know,  will  never  be  on  earth, —  when 
all  this  comes  to  pass,  then  the  sense  of  the 
tragedy  of  life  becomes  too  strong  for  us.  The 
dear  home,  loved  so  tenderly,  is  for  us  little 
better  than  the  cenotaph  of  the  lost  and  dead ; 
the  warning  to  ourselves  that  over  all  our  busy 
schemes  and  hopes  the  pall  will  soon  come 
down, —  "  the  night  cometh  when  no  man  can 
work." 

I  believe  it  is  this  deep,  sorrowful  sense  of  all 
that  is  most  sad  and  most  awful  in  our  mortal 
lot,  a  sense  which  we  escape  amid  the  rush- 
ing to  and  fro  of  London,  but  which  settles 


TOWN    MOUSE    AND    COUNTRY    MOUSE          243 

down  on  our  souls  in  such  a  home  as  I  have 
pictured,  which  makes  the  country  unendurable 
to  many,as  the  shadows  of  the  evening  lengthen. 
To  accept  it,  and  look  straight  at  the  grave 
towards  which  they  are  walking  down  the 
shortened  vista  of  their  years,  taxes  men's 
courage  and  faith  beyond  their  strength,  and 
they  fly  back  to  the  business  and  the  pleasures 
wherein  such  solemn  thoughts  are  forgotten 
and  drowned.  And  yet  beneath  our  cowardice 
there  is  the  longing  that  our  little  race  should 
round  itself  once  again  to  the  old  starting  point; 
that  where  we  spent  our  blessed  childhood,  and 
rested  on  our  mother's  breast,  and  lisped  our 
earliest  prayers,  there  also  we  should  lay  down 
the  burden  of  life,  and  repent  its  sins,  and 
thank  the  Giver  for  its  joys,  and  fall  asleep, — 
to  awaken,  we  hope,  in  the  eternal  Home. 


•&> 

I  - 


days  priorto_due_date_ 

^TsSTAMPED  BELOW 


GENERAL  LIBRARY  -  U.C.  BERKELEY 


